GIFT  OF 


THE  MEANING  AND 
OF   LIF 


k  — 

V//  ,  \\ 

X^-^/,,,1      rv        .  __V,<\<V\ 

A  SEARCH  FOR  RELIGIOPT^- b  « 

IN    BIOLOGY 


GEORGE    M.  GOULD,  A.M.,  M.D. 


FROM    LIFE,    THROUGH    LIFE,    TO    LIFE. 

"D  A6yo$  2dp£  tysrero. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


NEW    YORK 

27    WEST  TWENTY-THIRD   STREET 


LONDON 

24  BEDFORD  STREET,  STRAND 


®lje  liniehnboeher 
1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1893 

BY  GEORGE  M.  GOULD 

Entered  at  Stationers'  //«//,  London 

By  GEORGE   M.  GOULD 


Electrotyped,  Printed,  and  Bound,  by 

e  Iknicherbocher  press,  "Hew 
G.  P.  PUTNAM  's  SONS 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 


PACE 


INTRODUCTION  ... 

I.  PHYSICAL    AND    METAPHYSICAL          .  .12 

II.  PARTIAL    TRUTHS    .  •          24 

III.  INCARNATION  •          5^ 

IV.  CYTOLOGY        .  77 

V.  SENSATION        .  .       IOI 

VI.  EVOLUTION       .                                      .  •       T45 

VII.  REPRODUCTION          .  •        J57 

VIII.  CONCERNING    EVIL.            .  Il^ 

IX.  JUSTIFICATION    OF    THE    INCARNATION  PROCESS               1 88 

X.  FREEDOM            .  199 

XI.  PERSONALITY  2I1 

XII.  IMMORTALITY               .             .  229 

XIII.  ETHICS     .  239 

XIV.  BEAUTY                 .             .             .  28° 
XV.  SLEEP,    DREAMING,    AND    AWAKENING  .                                  284 

INDEX  293 


249043 


THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

THE  ordinary  railway  laborer,  in  cutting  through  a 
wall  of  stratified  rock  that  by  volcanic  action  has 
been  tilted  or  warped  out  of  its  original  level,  never 
dreams  of  the  causes  of  the  stratification  or  of  its  dis- 
placement. To  him  the  quarrel  of  the  "  Neptunists"  and 
the  "  Plutonists  "  has  never  been  distantly  suggested.  He 
daily  sees  these  peculiarities,  but  to  his  incurious  mind 
no  question  of  why  or  how  has  been  aroused  thereby. 
When  the  railway  cut  has  been  completed,  thousands  of 
people  are  rushed  through  it,  but  doubtless  to  very  few,  if 
the  train  were  halted  in  front  of  the  wall,  would  the 
significance  of  the  tilted  and  twisted  layers  be  clear.  Of 
the  millions  drawn  by  the  locomotive  engine,  few  under- 
stand the  mechanism  by  which  they  are  so  powerfully 
and  rapidly  pulled  along.  Of  these  few  in  a  million, 
least  of  all  probably  the  engineer,  who  can  use  the 
force  so  perfectly, — of  these  very  few,  perhaps  one  may 
understand  the  nature  of  heat  and  the  action  of  heated 
water,  and  how  the  combined  bombardment  of  billions  of 
crowded  atoms  striking  the  piston-head  batter  it  back 
and  forth  and  transmute  atomic  vibration  into  molar 
motion.  Thousands  daily  pass  an  optician's  window  and 
are  not  moved  to  inquire  as  to  the  cause  of  the  turning 


2  THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  the  vanes  in  a  Crookes'  radiometer.  And  yet  all  these 
mysteries  upon,  among,  and  by  which  we  live,  are  clearly 
and  easily  explainable,  if  our  minds  but  stopped  to  in- 
quire ;  if  we  desired  to  know,  the  knowledge  would  be 
forthcoming.  One  of  the  saddest  things  in  man  is  his 
willingness  to  be  ignorant  and  incurious  of  the  mystery 
that  he  is  and  by  which  he  is  surrounded.  A  very  dis- 
couraging exaggeration  of  this  willingness  is  agnosticism, 
— an  unmanly  resignation  and  despair  after  a  first  defeat. 
The  bravest,  noblest  attitude  is  that  of  unsatisfied  long- 
ing, and  the  never-stilled  faith  that  light  will  come  into 
all  of  our  darkness  and  that  the  riddle  of  our  lives  will  be 
solved.  We  must  trust  that  light  exists,  and  must  persist 
in  trying  to  find  it,  must  be  willing  to  give  up  half-truths, 
for  whole  truths,  and  guard  the  mind  against  the  bias  of 
prejudice.  Agnosticism,  materialism,  atheism,  pessimism, 
sensualism,  reckless  luxury,  despair,  rigid  creed-worship  and 
superstition,  and  a  thousand  similar  evils  of  our  time,  are 
directly  begotten  and  fostered  by  this  lack  of  trust  in 
coming  light. 

The  best  method  of  reaching  truth  is  that  of  a  sym- 
pathetic study  of  the  facts  before  us — that  is,  by  induc- 
tion, and  by  a  broad,  careful,  systematic  inference,  by 
making  the  light  about  us  ever  wider,  and  fearlessly  at- 
tacking the  mystery  beyond.  Darkness  and  half-truths 
are  thus  progressively  merged  into  light  and  larger  truths, 
and  the  world  of  the  known  becomes  ever  greater  and 
more  satisfying.  Let  us  renounce  deduction,  theories 
clutched  out  of  the  air,  word-wars  and  logical  juggling, 
and  fix  our  minds  to  a  perception  of  facts  and  a  sym- 
pathetic interpretation  of  them. 

Now  when  one  looks  about  him  the  plainest,  largest 
fact  he  sees  is  that  of  the  distinction  between  living  and 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

lifeless  things.  All  things  are  divisible  into  the  two 
categories.  Just  as  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
to  the  mother's  heart  between  the  living  and  the  dead 
child,  so  to  the  philosophic  mind  there  is  all  the  differ- 
ence in  the  world  between  living  matter  and  non-living 
matter.  Upon  that  distinction  must  begin  all  honest 
thinking.  A  step  further  is  gained  by  the  obvious  truth 
that  the  visible  part  of  living  forms  is  made  up  of  the 
complexed,  systematized,  and  utilized  atoms  and  molecules 
of  the  non-living  world.  The  invisible  life  is  an  organiz- 
ing power  using  matter  as  material,  and  intelligence  and 
purposiveness  are  plain  characteristics  of  the  invisible 
life.  Every  cell  and  organ  and  organism  shows  presently- 
acting  intelligence,  healing  power,  adaptation  to  circum- 
stance, resistance  to  or  use  of  circumstance.  It  is  plain 
that  a  practically  omnipresent,  invisible,  living,  intelligent 
force  is  operating  in  and  through  every  living  thing.  To 
identify  matter  and  this  living  intelligence  by  any  system 
of  idealism,  monism,  pantheism,  or  materialism,  is  to  do 
violence  to  logic  and  misread  the  facts.  The  dark  riddle 
of  life  is  to  explain  why  Life  is  thus  incorporating  itself  in 
material  forms,  and  why  the  peculiarities,  course,  accidents, 
length  of  progress  and  evils,  of  the  process  are  as  they  are. 
This  little  book,  I  believe,  gives  the  keynote  and  method 
of  solution  of  the  riddle.  The  question  of  the  origin  of 
the  lifeless  universe  is  left  untouched,  with  the  accept- 
ance of  what  seems  to  me  the  axiomatic  truth  that  its 
essential  elements,  the  atoms,  are  uncaused,  did  not 
originate  at  all,  and,  least  of  all,  by  any  mental  or  intel- 
ligent fiat.  It  is  a  simple  untruth  that  the  non-living 
world  of  matter  shows  any  faintest  hint  of  design  or  of 
divinity.  But  there  is  comfort  instead  of  despair  in  this 
background  of  fate,  of  a  universe  not  made  or  ordered  by 


4          THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

mentality.  Matter  could  not  have  been  created,  as  some- 
thing out  of  nothing  is  unthinkable  ;  and  only  one  law  or 
mode  of  its  action,  gravity,  is  at  present  unexplained,  and 
this  "  law  "  is  really  all  the  quality  it  has.  The  whole  end- 
less and  eternal  universe  is  made  up  of  the  same  kinds  of 
atoms  as  we  know  here.  It  could  not  have  begun,  or  the 
despair-provoking  certainty  of  its  coming  end  would  be 
inevitable,  since,  to  use  a  simple  illustration,  a  rope  that 
has  one  end  must  have  another.  Nor  can  it  be  limited  in 
extent,  since  any  immaterial  space  beyond  it,  or  any 
boundary  to  it,  by  the  inevitable  laws  of  gravity  would 
bring  about  universal  catastrophe.  No  such  catastrophe 
is  discoverable,  or  inferable  from  astronomic  fact.  Every 
large  part  of  the  sidereal  universe  is  held  more  or  less 
fixed  in  place  by  the  opposing  gravitational  force  of  a 
literally  infinite  universe  upon  every  side.  If  upon  any 
side  that  universe  were  less  than  infinite  in  extent,  the 
space-filling  suns  and  worlds  would  be  drawn  toward  a 
somewhere-existing  gravitational  center,  and  there  would 
result  a  persistent  and  consecutive  crashing  together  of 
all  suns  and  matter  into  one  tremendous  central  sun. 
Hence  the  attempt  of  astronomy  to  determine  the  per- 
manent direction  of  motion  of  a  body  of  stars  toward  a 
point,  or  their  orderly  revolution  about  a  center,  is  use- 
less and  always  will  remain  resultless.  The  existence  of 
such  motion  or  revolution  would  mean  the  speedy  end 
of  the  extended  universe.  There  is,  therefore,  comfort 
even  in  fate. 

It  is  not  absurd  to  ask  as  to  the  origin  of  life,  because 
in  the  infinite  progress  possible  to  Spirit  or  Life,  we  may 
not  block  the  way  by  any  useless  and  impertinent  agnos- 
ticism as  regards  even  this  great  question.  There  are  many 
reasons,  deductive  and  inductive,  for  supposing  Life  to 


IN  TROD  UC  TION.  5 

have  had  some  sort  of  a  primary  inception,  or  progressive- 
ness,  however  hidden  from  our  present  mental  power. 
Every  expression  of  Life  we  know  shows  process,  difficul- 
ties unconquerable  and  difficulties  conquerable,  mastery 
by  fate  or  ingenious  partial  conquering  of  fate — never  a 
suggestion  of  omnipotence.  The  inference  is  quite  clear, 
that  if  life  were  a  worker  in  matter  in  all  the  past  eternity, 
it  would  have  been  a  more  successful  conqueror  of  it  than 
is  pathetically  evident.  The  most  patent  aim  of  life  is  to 
win  itself  a  home  in  worlds  of  inorganic  matter,  and  to 
obtain  progressive  control  of  purely  physical  matter  and 
forces.  The  fact  that  the  success  is  only  partial  in  our 
own  world,  that  it  has  been  attended  with  such  difficulty 
and  such  expense  (suffering,  evil,  death,  reproduction,  etc.), 
and  that  not  more  than  two  or  three  worlds  of  our  solar 
system  can  possibly  allow  life  a  home  in  them,  together 
with  the  certainty  that  like  conditions  exist  everywhere 
else, — all  this  points  to  the  finiteness,  if  one  may  so  speak, 
of  God,  and  His  struggle  with  adverse  circumstances.  But 
it  also  gives  blessed  reasons  and  incentives  for  sympathy 
with  Him,  and  makes  duty  clear,  unravels  a  thousand  mys- 
teries of  our  being  here,  makes  religion  a  psychical  as  well 
as  a  biological  necessity, — indeed,  forms  the  ground  of  an 
indissoluble  and  necessary  identity  of  religion  and  biology. 
Lives  must  be  linked  with  Life  by  love  and  sympathy 
and  loyalty,  just  as  much  as  they  are  derivatively, 
physically,  and  physiologically. 

Upon  its  physical  side  this  conjoining  of  religion  and 
biology  is  made  clear  by  the  cell-doctrine  which  physi- 
ology and  pathology  have  established  as  the  fundamental 
truth  of  all  biological  processes.  The  physiological  unit 
is  the  cell.  This  truth  has  been  seen  plainly  enough,  but 
only  physically  and  physiologically ;  its  application,  as 


6          THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

explanatory  of  the  thousand  mysteries  of  our  own  life, 
and  especially  as  explanatory  of  what  is  called  evolution, 
the  process  of  life-incorporation  or  incarnation,  and  of  the 
great  mysteries  of  death,  nutrition,  psychology,  etc.,  has 
not  been  seen.  I  have  endeavored  to  suggest  this  appli- 
cation and  explanation  in  these  pages,  and  in  more  effi- 
cient hands  than  mine  I  believe  the  method  capable  of 
such  splendid  use  and  extension  that  through  it  men's 
minds  may  come  to  see  purpose  and  hopefulness  in  our 
life,  and  look  forward  with  confidence  and  trust  to  a  fu- 
ture that  before  was  blank  with  mystery  and  dark  with 
death.  According  to  this  thought  God  can  only  reach 
incarnation  through  the  cell,  and  the  difficulties  of  cell- 
nutrition  explain  the  necessity  of  what  is  called  "evolu- 
tion," the  fact  of  development  and  the  length  of  the 
process,  as  well  as  its  thousand  peculiarities,  partial  failures, 
and  evils.  The  progress  of  the  process  to  ever  higher 
forms,  humanization,  and  thespiritualization  of  humanity, 
are  explained  by  the  purpose  of  God,  luminous  with 
coming  beneficence  and  resplendent  with  coming  beauty  ; 
the  delayed  progress  is  due  to  the  single  fact  that  His 
only  seat  of  power  in  the  material  world  is  the  cell,  of 
which  He  alone  has  direct  control,  through  which  all  ulte- 
rior aims  are  realizable,  and  that  the  difficult  nutrition  of 
this  cell-life  is  subject  to  a  thousand  conditions  of  tempera- 
ture, food-supply,  etc.,  and  those  accidents  of  untoward 
circumstance  we  call  disease  and  evil.  Accordingly 
death  is  the  great  unconquered  difficulty  of  nutrition,  and 
reproduction  is  an  ingenious  semi-overcoming  of  it.  Ac- 
cordingly the  complex  cell  of  the  animal  is  only  possible 
when  fed  upon  the  less  complex  cell  of  the  vegetable. 
Upon  the  preservation  of  the  conditions  and  perfection 
of  the  vegetable  world  is  based  the  existence  of  the  animal 


INTRODUCTION.  J 

and  human  world.  Hence  the  exuberance  and  perti- 
nacity of  vegetation.  Civilization,  with  its  railroads  and 
scientific  agriculture  and  multitudinous  systematization  of 
food-supply  and  distribution,  for  the  first  time  in  the  world 
now  assures  a  security  and  settlement  of  the  nutritional 
problem,  and  permits  the  attention  of  God  and  humanity 
to  be  given  to  the  work  of  spiritualization,  to  the  benefi- 
cent and  artistic  use  of  power  over  the  material  world.  A 
certain  corollary  of  this  great  incarnation-process  is  that 
in  veriest  literalness,  it  is  God's  own  life  and  self  that  lives 
in  and  uses  every  cell  of  every  living  thing,  and  that  He 
is  thus  "  very  near  "  indeed  to  every  one  of  us,  if  happily 
we  but  search  and  find  Him.  It  is  His  omnipresent  per- 
sonality that  constitutes  the  reacting  psychical  reality  of 
our  being ;  through  the  highest  cerebral  cells  of  sensation, 
receiving  the  synthetized,  transmuted,  classified  facts  or 
stimuli  of  the  external  world,  and  through  the  motor  cere- 
bral cells  ordering  the  use  of  body  and  of  the  external 
world.  Finally  the  certainty  of  our  freedom  comes  from  the 
certainty  that  we  are  the  very  sons  of  God,  sharers  of  His 
personality,  possessed  of  His  freedom,  and  that  He  long- 
ingly awaits  our  educational  fitness  and  loyalty  to  confer 
upon  us  the  honor  of  inheritance  of  His  kingdom,  and  of 
being  His  co-workers  and  friends. 

A  great  philosopher  said  that  two  things  especially 
inspired  him  with  awe  and  reverence  :  the  starlit  heaven 
above,  and  the  moral  law  within.  Until  I  reached  the 
vivid  knowledge  of  the  foregoing  truths  these  two  things 
were  precisely  they  that  inspired  me  with  that  utter  deso- 
lation of  despair  I  have  called  cosmic  horror — that  volcanic 
shuddering  and  sickening  of  the  soul  at  the  contemplation 
there  without  of  the  awful  infinity  of  the  dead,  cold,  and 
purposeless  universe  ;  whilst  within,  an  unknown  God,  by 


8          THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

an  unknown  instinct,  commanded  an  unknown  self  to  do 
an  unknown  duty.  I  have  learned  that  many  another  sen- 
sitive despairing  soul,  in  the  face  of  the  glib  creeds  and 
the  loneliness  of  subjectivity,  has  also  and  often  felt  the 
same  clutching  spasm  of  cosmic  horror,  the  very  heart 
of  life  stifled  and  stilled  with  an  infinite  fear  and  sense  of 
lostness.  But  I  can  now  lie  and  look  into  the  starry 
depths  of  space  without  soul-sickening  or  spirit-shudder, 
for  knowledge  lends  comfort  even  to  fate,  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  vision  and  the  love  of  God  in  the  world  about 
and  within  me  translates  the  stern  command  of  duty  into 
a  sweet  and  irresistible  invitation  of  the  Father  to  help 
Him. 

I  believe  that  very  few  indeed  find  in  the  stars  or  in 
the  command  of  duty  either  consolation  or  helpfulness 
for  their  spiritual  homesickness  and  orphanage.  As  for- 
merly with  me,  I  judge  that,  with  the  common  mental 
attitude,  the  two  objects  inspire  terror  and  despair. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  from  similar  fear  of  the  awful 
unresponsive  infinity  of  the  universe,  and  from  the  con- 
tradiction of  internal  command  and  external  fact,  unknown 
thousands  consciously  or  unconsciously  renounce  thought 
and  investigation,  and  either  bury  themselves  in  an 
authoritative  system,  creed,  or  church,  or  fly  from  the 
demands  of  duty  to  the  distractions  of  money-getting, 
sensuality,  fashion,  and  the  thousand  sad  devices  people 
have  made  in  order  to  forget  themselves.  But  the  nobler 
can  never  stifle  the  soul's  unrest  and  insatisfaction  in  such 
ways.  The  feeling  can  never  be  kept  wholly  out  of 
consciousness  that  they  are  orphans  who  still  hunger  for 
a  Father  they  have  never  beheld  and  cannot  find,  and 
yearn  with  a  sickening  nostalgia  for  a  home  they  have 
never  known  and  see  no  hope  of  ever  knowing.  More 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

superficial  minds  turn  to  the  hollowness  of  an  absurd 
atheism  and  materialism  or  a  more  absurd  spiritism,  while 
the  virile  seek  relief  in  science,  literature,  socialism,  or 
government.  But  all  alike  have  despaired  and  renounced, 
and  have  settled  into  a  conscious  or  unconscious  agnos- 
ticism that  crushes  the  great  decisive  questions  of  life  out 
of  sight,  and  that  logically  and  practically,  sooner  or  later, 
leads  to  lowered  ideals,  more  selfish  practices  and  habits, 
to  psychical,  and  not  infrequently  to  physiological  suicide. 

The  great  need  of  the  age  is  a  scientific  religion  or  a 
religious  science  that  shall  give  these  despairing,  toppling 
minds  a  home  in  the  universe  ;  a  religion  that,  blinking  no 
fact  of  evil  or  truth  of  science, — nay,  built  beyond  possi- 
bility of  wreckage  on  the  everlasting  bases  supplied  by 
science,  shall  thereby  have  certain  foundation  for  a  super- 
structure wherein  may  joyfully  dwell  the  Soul,  with  all 
its  infinite  possibilities  of  art,  love,  and  faith.  Such  a 
suggestion  of  a  reasonable  and  even  necessary  faith  I 
firmly  believe,  however  imperfectly,  is  herewith  accurately 
given.  For  twenty  or  more  years  I  have  despairingly 
ransacked  the  wisdom  of  ethnic  religions,  systems  of 
philosophy,  and  of  natural  theology,  and  lo  !  under  the 
microscope  I  found  God  at  work,  and  in  biology  revealing 
Himself  so  fast  and  so  far  as  fate  and  His  myriad  diffi- 
culties allowed,  self  His  incarnation  and  deputy,  Duty 
and  Intellect  His  pleading  with  the  deputy  to  become  co- 
partner and  helper  in  the  Divinization  of  the  World. 

The  sole  solutions  of  the  modern  tragedy  of  the  spirit 
that  so  far  are  at  all  clear  or  worthy  of  consideration 
are  those  supplied  by  a  religion  that  is  not  scientific,  or 
by  a  science  that  is  not  religious.  Science  and  religion 
equally  and  alike  await  the  vision  and  knowledge  of  the 
ever-present,  living,  and  struggling  God. 


10        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

The  relation  of  philosophy  and  religion  should  and 
must  be  a  genuine  union  and  interfusion.  They  represent 
two  methods  of  mental  activity  of  one  being,  two  aspects 
of  one  great  life-truth.  True  personality  will  bind  them 
into  a  living  unity.  The  philosophy  that  is  not  religious 
and  the  religion  that  is  not  rational  are  either  but  half- 
truths,  each  needing  the  other  to  complete  and  perfect 
itself.  The  history  of  the  marriage,  yet,  alas,  to  be 
solemnized,  may  be  symbolized  by  the  sweet  story  of 
Gilbert  a  Becket  and  his  love.  Captured  during  the  cru- 
sades by  a  Syrian  Emir,  Gilbert  and  the  daughter  of  the 
Emir  fell  in  love  with  each  other  and  planned  to  escape 
together.  In  this  he  succeeded,  but  she  at  first  did  not. 
At  a  later  time  she  was  able  to  elude  her  father  and  with 
great  suffering  travelled  the  long  way  to  London  knowing 
but  two  English  words.  For  months,  followed  by  a 
curious  mob,  she  cried  these  two  words,  Gilbert,  London, 
about  the  streets,  until  arriving  accidentally  before  Gil- 
bert's house,  he  by  chance  discovered  her  and  took  her  to 
his  home  and  heart.  The  more  virile  reason  of  the  Occi- 
dental mind  has  escaped  from  the  slavery  of  Oriental 
error,  but  Religion,  that  true  and  ever-faithful  daughter 
of  the  East,  has  followed  so  soon  and  fast  as  possible, 
and  now,  seeking  her  lover,  Philosophy,  sadly  wanders 
dazed  and  fainting  about  our  modern  world  with  but  two 
words,  God,  Love,  ever  upon  her  lips,  while  the  rabble 
follow  with  cold  or  superstitious  curiosity,  or  cruel  jeers. 

It  is  the  conjunction  of  scientific  reason  and  religious 
emotion  that  alone  can  give  the  soul  of  man  the  chakar 
wings  and  gladsome  spirit  *  to  mount  above  the  clouds 

*  ' '  The  heavenward  flight  of  a  large  bird  is  always  a  magnificent  spectacle  ; 
that  of  the  chakar  is  peculiarly  fascinating  on  account  of  the  resounding 
notes  it  sings  while  soaring,  and  in  which  the  bird  seems  to  exult  in  its  sub- 


INTRODUCTION.  II 

and  storms  of  life  when  they  become  too  oppressive,  and 
soar  high  in  the  sunlit  empyrean  of  freedom  and 
happiness. 

lime  power  and  freedom.  I  was  once  very  much  surprised  at  the  behavior 
of  a  couple  of  chakars  during  a  thunderstorm.  On  a  still,  sultry  day  in 
summer  I  was  standing  watching  masses  of  black  cloud  coming  rapidly  over 
the  sky,  while  a  hundred  yards  from  me  stood  the  two  birds  also  apparently 
watching  the  approaching  storm  with  interest.  Presently  the  edge  of  the 
cloud  touched  the  edge  of  the  sun,  and  a  twilight  gloom  fell  on  the  earth. 
The  very  moment  the  sun  disappeared  the  birds  rose  up  and  soon  began 
singing. their  long  resounding  notes,  though  it  was  loudly  thundering  at  the 
time,  while  vivid  flashes  of  lightning  lit  the  black  cloud  overhead  at  short 
intervals.  I  watched  their  flight  and  listened  to  their  notes,  till  suddenly, 
as  they  made  a  wide  sweep  upwards,  they  disappeared  in  the  cloud,  and  at 
the  same  moment  their  voices  became  muffled,  and  seemed  to  come  from  an 
immense  distance.  The  cloud  continued  emitting  sharp  flashes  of  lightning, 
but  the  birds  never  reappeared,  and  after  six  or  seven  minutes  once  more 
their  notes  sounded  clear  and  loud  above  the  muttering  thunder.  I  suppose 
they  had  passed  through  the  cloud  into  the  clear  atmosphere  above  it." — 
HUDSON,  Naturalist  in  La  Plata. 


CHAPTER  I. 
PHYSICAL    AND    METAPHYSICAL. 

H*HE  two  essential  constituents  or  factors  of  the  work 
of  every  artisan — indeed,  of  every  act  or  function 
of  a  living  organism — are  the  material  and  the 
worker.  This  is  the  dualism  that  underlies  all  the  outgo- 
ings of  man's  ingenuity  and  industry.  There  are  many 
other  subdivisions  possible :  for  example,  there  is  the 
finished  product  or  manufactured  article  ;  but,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  is  evidently  only  the  chosen  and  transformed 
material,  or  it  is  the  idea  of  the  workman  incorporated  in 
material  shape ;  or,  from  the  side  of  the  workman,  it  may 
be  said  that  his  hands  that  as  tools  do  the  work,  his 
eyes  that  aid  him,  his  senses — nay,  his  entire  body,  are 
but  instruments  of  his  mind.  His  body  is  but  the  inter- 
mediate agent  for  the  realization  of  ideas  or  ingenious 
energy.  Thus  the  slightest  reflection  shows  that  all  other 
phases  of  bionergy  or  life-force  are  resolvable  into  two 
fundamental  ones :  the  material  acted  upon,  and  the 
intelligent  energy  that  manipulates  it. 

Generalize  this  thought,  and  we  have  the  necessary 
prerequisite  of  a  proper  conception  of  the  world.  All 
accurate  knowledge,  all  valuable  philosophic  thinking,  is 
based  upon  the  same  distinction  of  maker  and  material. 
In  all  the  world  there  are  finally  but  two  objects,  the 
physical  and  the  extra-physical,  or,  in  common  language, 
Matter  and  Life.  Perception,  through  the  senses,  with 


12 


PHYSICAL  AND  METAPHYSICAL.  13 

scientific  imagination  and  inference,  give  us  knowledge 
of  the  physical  world  ;  self-consciousness  gives  us  knowl- 
edge of  the  metaphysical  world,  supplemented  by  the 
observation  of  the  results  of  Life's  activity  in  the  material 
realm. 

THE  PHYSICAL  comprises  all  matter,  the  physical  uni- 
verse with  all  its  inherent  powers  and  properties,  and  forces, 
gravitational,  and  chemical.  Herein,  of  course,  is  included 
the  ether,  with  its  forces,  radiant  energy,  light,  heat,  magnet- 
ism, and  electricity.  The  doctrine  of  the  persistence  and 
co-relation  of  physical  forces,  assented  to  by  all  rational 
minds,  proves  conclusively  that  this  physical  universe  was 
without  beginning,  and  will  be  without  end  ;  that  it  is 
uncreated,  existing  in  and  of  itself.  The  spectroscope 
shows  that,  in  addition  to  its  infinity  of  time,  it  has  per- 
haps not  a  strictly  logical,  but  what,  without  serious  error, 
we  may  call  a  practical,  infinity  of  space  or  extension. 
The  farthest  suns,  the  light-messages  of  which  take  incal- 
culable light-years  *  to  reach  us,  are  shown  to  consist  of 
essentially  the  same  chemical  elements  as  our  own  solar 
system.  About  these  suns  there  doubtless  are,  as  with 
us,  swinging  worlds  hidden  from  our  eyes  by  their  dis- 
tance and  lack  of  self-luminosity,  upon  some  of  which  in 
each  system  there  can  be  little  doubt  there  are  millions  of 
men  wondering,  as  we  wonder,  about  their  fellow-men  in 
other  world-islands,  swimming  in  the  inpenetrable  deeps 
of  space.  The  doctrine  of  the  atomicity  of  matter,  of 
which  there  can  be  no  rational  denial  ("  centers  of  force," 

*  A  light-year  is  the  distance  travelled  by  light  in  a  year  of  our  time.  It 
is  equal  to  something  like  six  hundred  billion  miles.  Light  travels  about 
one  hundred  and  eighty-nine  thousand  miles  per  second.  A  centauri  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  nearest  star  to  our  solar  system.  It  is  about  four  and  a  half 
light-years  distant. 


14       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

"  vortex-rings,"  etc.,  are  but  aspects  or  modifications,  not 
negations,  of  the  theory),  shows  us  that  however  combined 
into  complex  systems  by  mutual  inter-actions  or  the 
master-forces  of  Life,  they  all  tend  to  fall  back  again  into 
simple  systems  or  elementary  independence  whenever 
released  from  a  mechanically  controlling  or  an  intelligent 
domination.  Combine,  dissolve,  and  recombine,  however 
many  million  times  you  please,  the  atoms  of  the  seventy- 
two  or  more  elements  that  Life  shapes  and  uses  for  pur- 
pose, and  each  preserves  forever  its  independence,  and 
is  forever  unchangeable,  has  been,  and  always  will  be  so, 
wherever  the  universe  extends. 

THE  METAPHYSICAL. — Geology  and  cosmology  make  it 
clear  that  so  far  as  this  world  is  concerned  Life  is  a  late- 
comer, and  will  depart  early.  Millions  of  years  before  the 
earth  was  cool  enough  to  permit  of  a  succession  of  living 
types,  the  physical  held  full  sway,  and  millions  of  years 
hence,  when  too  cold  to  permit  life  a  habitation,  it  will 
swing  on  about  the  sun,  a  dead  mass  of  cinder  without 
the  moulding  and  vivifying  touch  of  its  present  wonder- 
working visitor.  The  inference  that  it  is  the  same  in 
other  parts  of  the  universe  is  beyond  question.  Thus  it 
is  conclusive  that  Life  is  a  reality  absolutely  different  from 
matter,  and  in  no  wise  to  be  identified  with  it  or  derived 
from  it.  The  proof  of  this  fact  is  primarily  an  act  of  per- 
ception, secondarily  of  self-consciousness,  but  as  we  shall 
later  see,  it  is  also  a  mechanically  deducible  truth.  The 
failure  in  perceiving  this  truth  is  the  fundamental  error  of 
all  monistic  and  solely  deductive  systems  of  philosophy, 
and  has  rendered  self-contradictory  and  sterile  the  think- 
ing of  great  and  good  minds.  The  fertility  and  light 
brought  into  philosophy  by  the  sole  sway  of  the  reverse 
and  likewise  partial  truth  is  shown  by  the  results  of  physi- 


PHYSICAL   AND  METAPHYSICAL.  15 

cal  science  and  Darwinism.  However  puerile  and  pitiable 
may  seem  the  crass  materialism  of  some  of  the  sorry 
parasites  of  this  school,  one  is  astonished  and  delighted 
to  recognize  the  beautiful  banishment  of  mystery  follow- 
ing the  one-sided  emphasis  of  the  study  of  the  material 
alone.  The  misfortune  has  been  that  by  some  strange 
fatuity,  probably  as  a  stupid  psychological  reaction  to 
the  God's-work-forgetting  supernaturalism  of  a  previous 
age,  scientific  research  and  philosophy  too  often  deny 
all  supernaturalism,  and  burden  themselves  with  the 
farce  of  accounting  mechanically  for  the  mechanically 
unaccountable. 

All  of  the  usual  terms  heretofore  in  use  to  designate 
the  extra-mundane  source  of  purpose  and  intelligent 
power,  connote  attributes  and  sentiments  that  are  either 
impossible  to  unite  in  such  a  being,  or  that  are  unjustifi- 
ably ascribed  to  him.  Let  us  limit  ourselves  modestly  to 
what  is  demonstrable  or  fairly  inferable  as  to  this  being; 
by  no  means  implying  that  our  tentative  boundaries  are 
either  final  or  definite.  Let  us  stand  always  in  the  light 
and  upon  the  known,  enlarging  so  fast  as  we  may  our 
area  of  light  and  knowledge,  but  never  jumping  blindly 
into  the  black  chasm  of  the  unknown.  If  thus  plunging 
we  think  to  be  upborne  by  the  divine  wings  of  faith  we 
shall,  as  so  many  others  have  done,  batter  our  heads  with 
inglorious  fatality  against  the  rocks  of  ignorance.  The 
God  we  see  daily  at  work  all  over  the  globe  is  primarily 
and  essentially  LIFE.  This  word  alone,  for  the  ordinary 
uses  of  our  writing  and  speech,  is  sufficiently  full  and  rich 
to  satisfy  the  sympathetic  mind.  But  life  to  many  means 
but  little  more  than  a  mere  blind  energy,  like  Schopen- 
hauer's blinde  Wille,  which,  even  to  the  concocter  of  that 
sad,  brilliant  philosophy,  apparently  had  most  fiery  and 


1 6        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

piercing  eyes.  To  the  sympathetic  and  open  vision,  how- 
ever, nothing  is  more  patent  than  purpose,  wisdom,  and 
intelligence  instinct  in  every  living  thing.  To  /?zos"7 
therefore,  we  must  add  hoyo?,  and  with  the  designation, 
Biologos,  we  connote  all  that  is  at  present  needed,  while 
we  leave  unknown  power  and  possibility  unexpressed. 

ATTRIBUTES  OF  BIOLOGOS. — The  childish  and  uncritical 
faiths  of  mankind  have  in  a  fervor  of  wonder  endowed 
their  supreme  Gods  with  a  multiplicity  of  absurd,  un- 
justifiable, and  self-contradictory  characteristics  and  pow- 
ers, that  have  chilled  true  love  and  sympathy,  and  left 
the  mind  of  the  worshipper  wandering  in  a  maze  of  mys- 
tery and  intellectual  inconclusiveness,  and  his  heart  the 
home  of  sorrow  and  doubt.  Much  of  this  was  because 
the  so-called  "  natural  theology  "  was  oblivious  of  nature 
and  its  widest  lessons,  because  men  spurned  or  ignored 
the  very  works  of  God  all  about  them,  and  of  which  their 
own  bodies  were  the  sublimest  and  divinest  proofs.  They 
plunged  into  an  ecstasy  of  adoration  and  flattery,  or  of 
logic-chopping  dialectic,  that  by  no  road  led  nowhither. 
The  sorrowfulest  and  stupidest  error  of  all  was  in  the 
ascription  of  omnipotence  to  the  being  whose  every  plant, 
tree,  animal,  or  man,  conclusively  shows  struggle  against 
difficulties,  and  ingenious  half-victories,  progressive  fail- 
ures and  successes,  devious  and  indirect  results  outworked 
with  imperfect  means  and  obstinate  materials.  This 
supposed  attribute  led  thousands  to  doubt,  denial,  and 
atheism,  by  the  simple  and  unanswerable  logic  of  "  Either 
He  does  not  wish  (to  destroy  evil)  or  He  cannot," — either 
horn  of  the  dilemma,  of  course,  negativing  His  existence. 
A  part  of  the  same  fallacy  was  the  like  unjustifiable  as- 
cription of  infinity  to  God, — an  attribute  wholly  unthink- 
able when  considered  as  a  positive  one,  and  leaving  the 


PHYSICAL   AND  METAPHYSICAL.  1 7 

poor  befogged  mind  seized  with  sudden  chill  and  amazed 
doubt. 

As  to  omniscience,  the  thought  is  not  destructive  of 
religious  feeling  and  intellectual  clearness.  We  stand  in 
rapt  amazement  at  the  intelligence  displayed  in  the  syn- 
chronous creation,  re-creation,  guiding,  and  governing,  of 
million-fold  types  of  billion-fold  individual  organisms  all 
over  the  world,  deep  in  its  oceans,  and  high  in  its  airs  and 
mountains.  Here  is  a  science  that  so  far  as  our  seeing 
goes  is  almost  an  omniscience, — especially  if  we  suppose 
Biologos  covering  millions  of  other  previously  dead  worlds 
with  million-fold  forms  of  palpitant  life.  Perfect  intel- 
lectual candor  lets  all  doubts  and  qualifications  have  their 
full  expression  and  influence,  and  therefore  we  may  not 
quench  the  suspicion  sometimes  arising  that,  if  Biologos 
were  omniscient,  He  would  have  been  able,  even  with  far 
less  than  omnipotent  power,  to  have  spared  Himself  much 
indirection,  much  misdirection  and  waste,  and  His  crea- 
tures the  awful  poignancy  of  wretchedness,  which,  like 
the  groan  of  a  monotonous  sub-dominant,  is  heard  in  all 
the  music  of  life.  But  there  are  a  thousand  illustrations 
daily  happening  in  our  hearts  and  before  our  eyes  that 
all  biologic  phenomena  are  led  and  marshalled  by  an  In- 
telligence whose  ends,  however  hidden  and  misappreciated 
by  us,  are  still  very  clear  to  Himself.  We  are  much  like 
soldiers  whose  primal  duties  are  obedience,  bravery,  and 
confidence  in  the  General-in-Chief.  Even  the  highest  of 
His  subordinate  officers  does  not  know  the  entire  plan 
of  campaign,  lying  in  the  most  hidden  deeps  of  the 
Commander's  mind.  The  last  battle  will  make  it  clear. 
Moreover,  the  noblest  of  human  minds  and  hearts  are  so 
fast  reaching  almost  a  practical  omniscience,  that  it  be- 
comes easy  to  believe  Biologos  endowed  with  a  knowledge 


1 8        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  almost  positive  infiniteness.  So  approximate  is  it  that 
the  question  has  little  significance,  and  its  discussion  is 
comparatively  useless.  The  vital  point  is  to  recognize  the 
sadly  but  awfully  evident  fact  that  knowledge  with  Him 
and  with  us  has  outrun  power.  We  know  much  about 
the  constitution  and  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  but 
are  wholly  powerless  over  them.  Of  the  history  and 
march  of  life-forms  of  our  planet  we  have  a  growing 
accuracy  of  knowledge,  but  are  able  to  modify  or  influence 
them  scarcely  any.  In  the  same  way  the  biography  of 
every  plant  or  animal  shows  that  its  wise  Creator  has 
been  forced  by  indirection  and  inexhaustible  ingenuity  to 
obviate  or  overcome  innumerable  difficulties  and  dangers. 
Precisely  the  same  thought  arises  when  we  think  of  the 
goodness  of  God.  To  endow  sensitive  creatures  with 
longings  and  possibilities  scarcely  less  than  infinite,  and 
thereafter  deny  the  bulk  of  them  any  proper  realization 
of  ideals  ;  to  make  suffering  and  death  the  condition  and 
means  of  progress ; — all  this,  and  more,  seems  incom- 
patible with  a  Christ-like  sympathy  and  a  limitless  good- 
ness. But  there  are  many  proofs  that  we  can  see,  whilst 
from  them  we  may  infer  others  not  seen,  which  prove 
suffering  and  denied  realization  of  longing  to  be  either 
temporary  accidents,  necessary  antecedents,  or  inobviable 
conditions  of  a  larger  ethics,  in  which  the  errant  note  of 
pain  is  blended  as  a  passing  discord  to  heighten  the  aton- 
ing beauty  of  the  final  resolving  harmony.  Slowly  men 
come  to  learn  that  even  now  a  large  proportion  of  the 
world's  suffering  is  obviable,  and  that  each  may  attain  a 
greater  and  at  least  a  moderate  happiness  with  a  greater 
loyalty  to  God.  Moreover,  the  purest  vision  sees  that 
there  is  something  better  than  happiness — happiness  as 
usually  conceived — always  awaiting  the  purest  heart. 


PHYSICAL  AND  METAPHYSICAL.  19 

Practical  intellectual  observation,  therefore,  harmonizes 
with  the  hunger  of  the  religious  heart  in  finding  the 
Father-Heart  of  Life  and  the  divine  vision  essentially  the 
same  as  our  own,  transcendently  larger  and  purer,  willing 
the  good,  seeing  and  knowing  almost  or  quite  infinitely, 
but  very  far  from  omnipotence  either  physically  or 
morally.  Friends  and  parents,  whom  we  love,  are  none 
the  less  prized  because  finite  and  faultful.  Indeed  we 
love  them  all  the  more  if  we  see  them  ever  struggling 
against  difficulties  within  and  without,  and  ever  progres- 
sively actualizing  their  ideals.  So  is  God  brought  closely 
correspondent  to  our  yearning  if  we  recognize  Him  as  a 
finite  and  suffering  God,  of  quite  limitless  benevolence 
and  knowledge,  but  struggling  with  divine  heroism 
against  recalcitrant  material  and  perpetual  obstacle.  Only 
such  a  conception  can  give  a  basis  for  religion,  and  make 
thinkable  or  possible,  obedience  to  the  command  that  we 
love  God.  No  infinite  and  omnipotent  being  can  be 
loved,  as  the  Avatars,  Incarnations,  Virgin  and  Saint  wor- 
ship of  all  times  practically  prove. 

At  the  first  glance  it  would  seem  that  this  process  of 
finitizing  the  divine  were  impious.  To  the  truly  religious 
it  will  not  finally  so  appear.  I  am  sorry  for  the  dogmatist 
who  will  persist  in  his  illogical  logic,  but  for  the  profes- 
sional dogmatist  I  have  little  concern.  The  time  has 
passed  when  inquiry  may  be  throttled  by  the  authority 
of  lordly  domination  either  of  systems  of  so-called 
philosophy  or  miscalled  religion.  And  what  is  impiety? 
Primarily  irreverence  and  unkindness.  But  it  has  often 
appeared  that  a  loving  trustfulness  and  a  genuine  rever- 
ence is  sometimes  found  in  the  heart  of  the  modest 
"  heretic,"  that  was  conspicuous  by  its  absence  from  the 
bulemic  appetite  of  the  "  believer."  Piety,  I  would  be- 


20       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

lieve,  consists  in  the  conscientious  attuning  of  one's  per- 
sonality in  the  most  perfect  unison  with  the  "  tonic " 
struck  by  God  for  the  world's  orchestra.  Intellectual 
honesty  is  a  string  often  sadly  out  of  tune,  I  fear.  To 
the  truly  pious,  I  have  said,  the  finite  but  the  acting  and 
loving  God  will  be  a  welcome  belief.  Indeed,  in  all  time 
the  genuinely  pious  have  made  themselves  such  Gods 
when  denied  them  by  the  articles  of  the  dominant  creed. 
Thus  one  God  after  another  is  created  as  logic  and 
authority  have  pushed  the  previous  God  back  into  the 
soundless  abyss  of  infinity.  When  Jehovah  talked  with 
Moses,  and  Himself  led  the  children  of  Israel,  no  nearer 
anthropomorphic  divinity  was  needed.  But  it  was  soon 
seen  that  the  one-tribal  God  must  perforce  neglect  the 
other  nations.  The  God  of  all  people,  of  all  worlds,  at 
once  became  dim  and  shadowy  in  His  infinity,  and  out  of 
the  heart-needs  of  hungering  humanity  His  Son  is  born  to 
be  near  them.  Him  they  can  love.  With  blind  fatuity  the 
iron  creed  pushes  Jesus  into  an  equality  of  Godhood, 
robbing  the  human  heart  of  its  cherished  faith.  But 
the  ever  prolific,  ever-hungering,  again  transfers  its  love 
to  new  semi-divine  humanities,  to  the  Virgin  Mary, 
and  to  Saints  innumerable.  What  of  throbbing  re- 
ligious faith  manages  to  keep  itself  alive  in  these  days 
of  practical  sensualism  and  theoretical  materialism  clings 
with  the  energy  of  desperation  to  these  pathetic  fresh 
creations,  at  once  idols  and  idyls  of  an  undying  faith 
periodically  robbed  of  its  young  by  the  dogmatist  and 
logician. 

And  likewise  all  over  the  world,  new  Avatars  and  in- 
carnations without  number  attest  the  devotion  of  the 
people  to  a  loving,  suffering,  acting,  finite  God,  and  the 
incomprehensibility  and  inutility  of  an  infinite  God. 


PHYSICAL  AND  METAPHYSICAL.  21 

The  child's  question,  Who  made  God?  is  justifiable  and 
pertinent.  If  the  construction  of  our  minds  and  the  pro- 
duct of  our  experience  makes  us  ask  for  a  cause  of  things, 
it  is  just  as  necessary  that  we  ask  as  to  the  cause  of  the 
cause.  Alas,  that  the  unwisest  of  peasants  or  the  wisest 
of  philosophers  must  render  the  same  answer.  In  the 
light  of  modern  science  such  a  question  as  regards  the 
origin  of  the  purely  physical  universe  seems  highly  absurd. 
In  the  whole  realm  of  inorganic  nature  there  is  not  the 
slightest  hint  of  purposiveness  or  intellectual  ordering. 
We  may  only  ask  concerning  a  designer  when  the  product 
manifests  design,  but  until  Biologos  created  self-moving 
organisms  with  the  dead  matter  of  the  physical  world,  no 
trace  of  extra-material  influence  is  discoverable  by  the 
sane  intellect  however  "  God-possessed."  It  is  unthink- 
able that  matter  could  have  been  created  de  novo,  and  it 
is  equally  unthinkable  that  even  divine  power  could 
annihilate  a  single  atom.  Matter  and  its  properties,  all 
purely  mechanical  and  unchangeable,  we  must  accept  as 
eternal  and  self-existent.  The  sole  considerable  mystery 
in  connection  with  it,  of  which  we  are  still  awaiting  a 
solution,  is  gravitation,  and  possibly  further  study  of  the 
ether  may  give  this  to  us. 

But  when  we  turn  to  a  consideration  of  our  metaphysi- 
cal reality  and  that  of  Him  who  is  the  Father  of  us,  we 
find  no  warrant  of  science  or  of  immediate  perception  to 
justify  us  in  a  wholly  restful  certainty  of  conviction  of 
His  eternity  or  self-sufHciency.  The  perpetual  continu- 
ance and  infinite  variety  of  ever  renascent  incarnations, 
every  blade  of  grass  and  living  thing  being  His  Avatar, 
is  a  faultless  proof  of  process  and  non-attained  result. 
This  alone  is  evidence  of  finiteness  and  incompleteness,  a 
necessity  put  on  Him  from  without  (or  worse  still,  spring- 


22        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ing  from  within)  to  be  other,  to  attain  an  unreached  end. 
Is  there  a  hint  in  the  restlessness  and  ever-uprising  desire 
at  the  heart  of  us,  and  in  the  driving,  almost  frightful 
hunger  of  Biologos  for  world-wide  incarnation,  that  there 
is  also  insatisfaction  in  the  deep  of  His  being,  and  that 
He  Himself  may  also  be  a  divine  victim  of  some 
"  struggle  for  existence."  The  thought  may  make  us 
shudder  as  if  icy-steel  were  in  our  soul,  but  every  deep 
spirit  has  often  felt  the  sudden  sickening  cosmic  horror 
and  chill  as  the  infinite  doubt  of  stability  clutched  his 
palsied  heart  while  peering  tremblingly  over  the 
crumbling  precipice  of  supposed  certainty  into  the  abyss 
of  past  and  future  night. 

Beyond  all  doubt,  not  matter-born,  but  matter-taming, 
Biologos  came  to  our  planet  from  without,  whether,  as 
has  been  taught,  gaining  the  first  foothold  by  means  of  a 
meteor-carried  cluster  of  organic  cells,  or  whether  such 
an  elementary  organism  were  nursed  and  fanned  into 
activity  here  in  the  warm  ooze  of  some  tropic  shore, 
matters  not.  Life's  organizing  architectonic  force  is  so 
profoundly  unlike  any  mechanical  force  that  the  materi- 
alist of  our  day  can  only  command  our  sincere  pity  for 
his  congenital  atrophy  of  perception.  One  who  is  blind 
to  the  extra-physical  origin  and  hyper-mechanical  nature 
of  life-force  is  dead  to  argument.  It  is  simply  a  question 
of  perception,  and  to  those  who  have  never  heard  or 
seen,  there  is  no  mental  image  possible  of  sound  or  color. 
The  fact  of  materialism,  however,  is  a  terrible  proof  of 
the  power  of  prejudice  over  spontaneous  and  normal 
mental  activity,  whilst  the  pathos  is  heightened  in  that  this 
materialistic  prejudice  is  the  reactionary  child  of  a  rabid 
monomaniac  theology  and  mechanical  creed-building. 

By  the  most  irresistible  logic  we  recognize  ourselves  as 
incarnations  or  Avatars  of  Biologos  ;  sharing  His  being 


PHYSICAL  AND  METAPHYSICAL.  2$ 

we  may  therefore  reason  from  our  own  nature  to  His. 
But  since  the  subtlest  and  strongest  human  intellect  can 
frame  no  faintest  conception  how  intelligent  life  could  have 
originated,  we  may  feel  some  sorrowful  certainty  that  such 
knowledge  of  Himself  is  perhaps  hidden  from  Himself. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  man's  ever  renewed  attack  upon 
mystery,  the  torment  of  its  weight  to  normal  minds,  is 
also  a  hint  that  even  the  child's  intolerable  question  may 
finally  get  answer.  The  answer  may  not  be  at  all  what 
we  should  expect.  Perhaps  it  may  consist  in  recognizing 
an  abnormalism  of  our  mind  begotten  in  us  by  our 
struggle  with  the  laws  of  matter.  To  Biologos  the  neces- 
sity of  ascribing  cause  to  the  ultimate  elements  of  exist- 
ence may  not  obtain.  Have  we  an  abnormal  excess  of 
the  causation-ascribing  impulse  woven  into  our  mental 
warp  and  woof  by  our  million-year-long  experience  and 
work  in  the  engendering  of  material  forms?  Uninfluenced 
by  any  of  the  material  subjugations  and  changes,  does 
mind  feel  any  obligation  to  ask  for  final  cause  and  origin? 
In  view  of  the  acceptance  of  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  and  the  indestructibleness  of 
matter,  we  see  how  easy  it  has  been  for  us  to  renounce 
the  necessity  of  asking  as  to  the  ultimate  cause  of  the 
physical  world,  and  in  this  fact  we  catch  suggestion  that  the 
mystery  of  the  origin  of  the  metaphysical  may  in  time  cease 
to  have  vexation,  interest,  or  even  significance  for  us."::" 

*  A  psychological  inquiry  as  yet  not  thought  of  or  attempted  would  be  a  pure 
effort  to  discern  the  validity  and  reach  of  intuitional  or  deductive  truths  as  pro- 
duced, modified,  repressed,  or  distorted  by  the  accidents  of  our  total  past  and 
inherited  experience  in  evolution-ages.  But  compensation  for  our  insatisfac- 
tion  in  this  colorless  and  airless  height  of  dizzy  thought  is  happily  at  hand  when 
we  turn  to  look  at  the  silent,  splendid  cosmic  panorama  of  biologic  phenomena 
spread  all  over  the  world, — the  glorious  victory  over  death  whereby  the  Father 
of  Life  has  covered  and  filled  the  dead  crust  of  a  desert  planet  with  soft,  sweet, 
home-making  vegetation,  and  with  fleet-footed,  limpid-eyed,  and  palpitant 
animal-life.  Could  rocks  and  fire,  winds  and  waters,  sunshine  or  star-shine, 
forces  gravitational,  mechanical,  chemical,  or  ethereal,  action  or  reaction, 
eon-long  or  world-wide,  have  resulted  in  a  single  grass-blade  or  cell  of  bio- 
plasm ?  Fool  indeed  is  he  who  hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God. 


CHAPTER  II. 
PARTIAL  TRUTHS. 

THE  truth  and  limits  of  materialism  are  simply  the 
truth  and  limits  of  the  physical  universe,  and  rightly 
considered  that  truth  is  of  such  tremendous  im- 
portance that  the  error  and  sin  of  Buddhism,  of  medieval 
asceticism,  of  idealistic,  deductive,  and  pantheistic  systems 
of  philosophy,  of  most  of  the  sentimental  and  theoretical 
religion  of  the  day,  are  stupendous  errors  and  sins.  So  ludi- 
crous or  awful  according  to  the  point  of  view  are  these  er- 
rors, that  the  contempt  of  the  scientist  and  of  the  eupeptic, 
if  not  justifiable,  is  at  least  comprehensible.  And  chiefly  for 
the  religious  ascetic  and  religious  idealist  what  consummate 
delusion  and  stupidity  !  These  worshipped  a  divinity  who, 
according  to  their  own  creed,  made,  ever  upholds,  and 
ever  works  in  the  world  ;  and  hence,  in  the  fact  of  his  own 
body,  as  in  the  magnificent  array  of  cosmic  animal  and 
vegetable  life,  this  impious  religionist,  if  not  prejudice- 
blind,  must  have  beheld  the  dead-in-earnest  work  of  his 
divinity  and  of  his  interest  in  this  world.  And  yet  he 
refuses  to  behold  it,  and  ignores  or  hates  the  beloved 
handiwork  of  his  divinity.  Could  folly  be  more  foolish, 
or  unreason  more  unreasonable  ?  Could  his  deity  be 
more  outrageously  insulted  ?  What  God  considers  worthy 
of  interesting  Himself  in  so  deeply  as  he  does  in  the  laws 
and  uses  of  matter,  God's  creatures  may  scarcely  pretend 
to  find  of  no  interest  whatever  or  to  condemn  outright. 

24 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  2$ 

Were  his  work  but  done  in  the  spirit  of  loving  sympa- 
thy, the  physical  scientist  may  by  all  odds  be  held  to 
have  chosen  the  wiser  part.  Alas,  that  too  generally 
science  is  not  pursued  in  such  a  spirit!  If  chemistry, 
physics,  physiology,  medicine,  and  forestry,  could  but 
catch  the  spirit  of  imitation  of  God,  working  as  He  works, 
and  espousing  His  ends,  what  progress  would  follow,  and 
what  a  light  would  come  among  their  darkness  !  It  is 
admitted  that  no  life  is  possible  in  the  sun,  nor  in  the 
majority  of  his  planets.  On  our  globe  but  a  fractional 
part  of  the  matter  forming  its  bulk  has  been  or  will  be 
touched  by  Biologos.  Moreover,  for  the  greater  part  of 
its  past  the  earth  has  had  no  living  thing  upon  it,  and  will 
again  refuse  life  a  home.  Biologos,  therefore,  makes  use 
of  but  an  infinitesimal  part  of  the  atoms  and  forces  of  the 
universe  ;  the  remainder  pursue  their  own  way  indepen- 
dent and  eternal.  The  delight  and  function  of  the 
intellect  of  man  is  knowledge,  and,  as  an  object  of 
study,  the  physical  universe  is  assuredly  a  large  and 
sufficiently  interesting  part  of  all  objects  to  admit  neither 
of  indifference  to  it  nor  of  disdain  of  it.  The  delight 
and  function  of  man's  will  is  to  do,  and  the  sole  material 
of  artistic  or  useful  recreation  is  the  physical.  The  de- 
light and  function  of  man's  emotional  nature  is  sensation, 
and  most  of  our  feeling  consists  in  the  play  of  physical 
forces  upon  those  exquisite  wonders,  the  attuned  and 
vibratile  organs  of  the  senses. 

From  a  multitude  of  cogent  reasons,  therefore,  there 
may  be  no  indifference  to  physics  and  the  physical  uni- 
verse. To  find  and  maintain  a  safe  home  therein,  and  to 
use  it  wisely,  requires  all  the  assiduous  study  we  can  give 
to  it  and  to  its  laws.  With  its  clumsy  but  distinct  justice 
it  ruthlessly  punishes  ignorance  or  neglect  of  it.  This 


26       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

constitutes  the  strength  and  justification  of  all  material- 
istic or  scientific  modes  of  thinking. 

But  to  hold  that  the  material  is  all,  to  affect  a  belief  in 
no  other  powers  than  normally  inhere  in  mechanically 
ruled  atoms  and  their  natural  correspondings, — this  is  a 
fatuous  sin,  exactly  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  ascetic. 

PANTHEISM,  "  God-intoxication,"  has  the  merit  of  pos- 
sessing a  visual  power  that  sees  the  most  visible  fact  in 
the  world,  but  it  errs  in  supposably  seeing  God  where  He 
has  never  been.  Not  the  millionth  of  the  millionth  of 
the  millionth  of  the  matter  of  the  universe  shows  any 
trace  of  divinity.  Moreover,  pantheism  finds  God  in  the 
world  by  a  process  of  ratiocination  rather  than  of  percep- 
tion, and  it  is  therefore  a  pale,  bloodless  God  that  it  adores, 
a  sort  of  ghost  of  a  ghost.  One  has  yet  to  hear  of  a  con- 
fessed pantheist  who  also  works  earnestly  as  a  biologist. 
The  pantheistic  divinity  is  so  much  of  an  abstraction,  is 
so  thin,  so  far  away,  and  works  in  such  subtle  and  indirect 
ways,  that  he  is  content  to  live  millions  of  years  as  rock- 
strata,  polar  ice-caps,  incandescent  suns,  or  sterile  planets. 
If  the  pantheist  perceives  God  in  the  biological  world  he 
fails  also  to  see  what  is  equally  visible  and  equally  im- 
portant,—  His  struggle  with  difficulties  and  obstinate 
material.  But  his  chief  sin  is  the  topsy-turvyism  of  seeing 
divinity  in  the  appallingly  godless  inorganic  universe.  In 
the  universe  of  dead  matter  there  are  but  two  things  : 
vibrating  atoms  and  vibrating  ether.*  There  are  some 
seventy  odd  classes  of  tiny  atoms,  each  member  of  a 
group  exactly  like  his  fellows  throughout  the  infinite 
reaches  of  space,  and  each  atom  in  constant  vibration  or 
revolution,  according  to  rigid  mechanical  method  and 

*  Perhaps  more  properly  but  one  thing,  as  the  ether  is  doubtless 
atomic,  like  an  immensely  rare  hydrogen. 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  2  7 

inherent  necessity.  The  inter-revolution  of  two  or  more 
types  of  atoms  in  a  closed  system  forms  a  compound 
substance,  and  the  study  of  these  constitutes  chemic  sci- 
ence. The  rate  of  vibration,  the  extent  of  "  free-path," 
and  the  relative  crowding,  constitute  what  we  vulgarly 
call  "  heat,"  or  solidity. 

But  in  the  densest  bodies  the  substance  is  very  porous ; 
the  atoms  are  always  swinging.  The  thinnest  substance 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  the  ether,  passes  through 
the  earth  much  as  wind  through  a  leafless  tree,  and  almost 
frictionless.  Atomic  immobility  or  absolute  density,  theo- 
retically equivalent  to — 273°  C.,*  is  a  purely  imagined 
condition.  These  bunchings,  clottings,  or  knottings  of 
vibrant  atoms  constitute  the  suns  and  subordinate  members 
of  the  world-systems.  The  strokes  or  beats  of  the  vibra- 
ting atoms  on  the  thinnest  substance,  the  ether,  give  rise 
to  resultant  and  similar  vibrations  and  pulsings  of  this 
substance,  whence  the  phenomena  of  heat,  light,  electricity, 
and  magnetism.  But  always  rigidly  mechanical  are  these 
phenomena,  always  uniform  and  necessary,  never  betray- 
ing a  trace  of  freedom  or  design.  Language  is  a  subjec- 
tive convenience,  and  has  no  validity  except  that  of  mutual 
understanding  and  communication.  If,  now,  we  designate 
as  mechanical  all  such  phenomena  of  physics  as  these  fixed, 
necessary,  invariable,  and  inherent  ones,  language  becomes 
meaningless  and  useless  if  we  call  them  also  theistic.  This 
applies  also  to  the  error  of  monism.  We  simply  meander 
in  a  dreamy  waste  of  nowhereness  and  indistinction,  if  we 
smudge  over  the  limiting  uses  of  an  agreed-upon  nomen- 
clature. Phenomena  that  show  no  freedom,  purposiveness, 
reason,  or  rational  irse,  cannot  by  any  clear  mind  be  classed 

*  The  latest  researches  show  that  absolute  zero  recedes  as  it  is  neared,  and 
that  absolute  atomic  immobility  is  beyond  this  point. 


28        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

in  the  same  category  as  phenomena  whose  chief  character- 
istics are  spontaneity,  design,  adaptative  reaction,  and 
mentality.  The  mistake  of  materialism  is  to  ignore  the 
living  worker ;  that  of  pantheism  is  to  ignore  the  dead 
material. 

MONISM  is  muddleism.  It  is  the  sole  system  of  religion 
or  philosophy  without  any  truth  whatever  as  a  basis. 
Unlike  any  other  system  it  does  not  exaggerate  the  partial 
truth  and  ignore  the  contradictory  truth.  Every  system 
has  done  this,  but  the  partial  truth,  of  course,  has  given  it 
validity  and  following.  As  monism  has  not  done  this  it 
therefore  has  little  or  no  validity  and  following.  It  con- 
tradicts the  fundamental  law  and  function  of  the  mind,  a 
perception  of  difference  in  two  things.  It  contradicts  the 
first  result  of  action  of  this  fundamental  mental  power,  in 
that  it  asserts  that  life  and  matter  are  essentially  identical. 
In  which  case,  to  be  sure,  language  and  the  naming  of 
things  become  useless,  and  the  only  logical  thing  for  a 
monist  worshipper  to  do  would  be  to  sit  staring  at  his 
navel,  and  for  all  eternity  monotonously  murmur,  Om.  Om. 

It  is  perhaps  possible  as  a  mere  feat  of  logical  or  intel- 
lectual gymnastics,  not  unmixed  with  a  strong  touch  of 
legerdemain,  to  construct  some  colorless  concepts  that 
cover  and  seem  to  unite  matter  and  life  in  a  pseudo-iden- 
tity. But  after  this  is  done  nothing  is  gained.  It  is  quite 
as  reasonable  to  start  out  with  two  unknowns,  or  infinites, 
as  with  one.  Since  time  began,  the  weary  brains  and 
fancies  of  thinkers  have  tried  to  solve  the  question  of 
ultimate  origins.  But  all  are  agreed  that  no  solution  has 
been  reached,  and  that  much  good  brain-power  has  been 
wasted  in  the  futile  effort.  Let  us  then  leave  such  result- 
less  searchings,  and  accept  the  two  indubitable  facts  that 
stare  us  in  the  eyes  from  every  object  of  the  actual  world. 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  2g 

If  life  and  matter  are  by  and  by  to  be  fused  into  an 
harmonious  unity,  the  truth,  when  it  comes,  will  be  plain 
enough  without  our  frightful  labors.  I  do  not  see  why  a 
tentative  dualism  should  be  considered  plebeian  and 
infidel.  On  the  contrary,  a  frank  and  free  vision  sees  as 
the  most  certain  of  all  facts  a  purposive  and  intelligent 
power,  life,  using  and  dominating  a  wholly  alien,  unsym- 
pathetic, and  changeless  material,  physical  substance,  and 
no  mental  ingenuity  can  imagine  either  as  derived  from 
the  other,  or  even  as  having  any  origin  in  time. 

It  is  wholly  useless  to  struggle  against  this  dualism  with 
an  inherited  bias  of  mind  for  a  divinity  responsible  for  the 
physical  universe.  Any  system  of  monism,  dualism,  athe- 
ism, materialism,  or  idealism,  can  by  an  astute  and  erudite 
dialectician  be  proved  or  disproved  with  incontrovertible 
logic,  provided  that  that  logic  be  deductive  in  character, 
and  that  certain  axiomatic  premises  be  admitted.  I  have 
little  or  no  respect  for  such  logic,  but  ask  only  as  to  the 
fact  that  exists  here  before  us.  In  the  physical  universe 
untouched  by  life's  transforming  power,  there  is  not  a 
trace  of  evidence  that  any  but  mechanic  forces  have  ever 
moved  an  atom.  But  in  all  life-dominated  matter  there 
is — even  in  every  atom's  movement — something  hyperme- 
chanical.  If  the  responsibility  of  God  be  extended  so  as 
to  comprise  the  inorganic  universe  either  as  to  origin  or 
as  to  present  dominion,  human  freedom  is  then  a  myth, 
determinism  is  unavoidable,  religion  is  nonsense,  and  the 
existence  of  evil  inexplicable.  In  biology  there  is  nothing 
more  certain  than  the  existence  of  process,  unattained  re- 
sult, purpose  being  wrought  out.  Now  process,  ipse  facto, 
demands  a  non-omnipotent  God,  and  it  confuses  beyond 
all  sanity  to  extend  the  reign  of  a  finite  divinity  into  the 
origin  and  government  of  the  entire  inorganic  universe. 


30        THE  KfEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

This  is  simply  to  locate  fate,  or  the  limiting  and  controlling 
power  of  God,  behind  both  Himself  and  the  inorganic  uni- 
verse. Process  demands  a  finite  God,  and  the  fact  evident 
in  every  biological  phenomenon  is  the  partial,  difficult  use 
of  dead  atoms  and  mechanic  forces  by  an  intelligent  life- 
force. 

Nothing  is  gained  by  seeking  to  go  behind  the  patent 
fact,  the  certain  dualism  of  life  (or  God)  and  matter,  united 
only  in  the  biologic  process.  Seek  to  unite  these  two  forms 
of  existence  anterior  to  the  biologic  process,  and  intellect 
is  anesthetized,  and  the  mind  goes  mooning  in  a  haze  of 
dream  out  of  which  can  come  no  clear  decision  either  of 
reason  or  of  morals.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  great 
religion  or  system  of  ethics  has  been  rooted  in  dualism. 
No  human  action  can  be  ethical  that  does  not  consciously 
or  unconsciously  spring  from  it.  If  one  denies  the  fact  of 
process  and  progress  in  biological  history,  he  may  logically 
enough  soar  into  dreamland  and  wordland,  and  rest  con- 
tent with  the  imaginative  phantasmagoria  that  Berkeley, 
Hegel,  Spinoza,  and  others  have  spun  there.  It  seems  to 
me  an  immoral  desire  on  the  part  of  many  minds  to  ignore 
the  evidences  of  struggle,  process,  and  endeavor,  most 
awfully  present  in  the  living  world,  and  to  find  God  in  the 
mechanic  universe  as  omnipotent  author  and  governor. 
It  is  both  intellectual  sin  and  moral  sin,  because  at  one 
blow  it  palsies  virile  thought  and  kills  sympathetic  en- 
deavor. 

Lastly,  it  is  the  most  awful  impiety  ;  because,  unless  one 
absolutely  deny  imperfection  and  unattained  result  in 
biological  history,  any  monism  puts  the  reason  and  ground 
of  this  evil  or  imperfection  in  the  very  being  of  God,  instead 
of  in  a  condition  outside  of  Himself,  and  which  He  is 
successfully  and  progressively  overcoming.  Waste  worlds, 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  31 

incomprehensible  mechanicalism,  glaring  evil,  deadness, 
uselessness,  are  everywhere  the  distinguishing  characteris- 
tics of  the  mechanical  universe.  If  God  did  all  this,  He  is 
an  incomprehensible  God,  and  covers  in  Himself  such  hid- 
eous contradictions  that  I  prefer  blank  atheism  as  being  far 
more  truthful  and  more  comforting  both  to  the  intellect 
and  to  the  heart. 

And  such  an  attempt  to  hold  the  human  mind  to  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  divine  origin  and  control  of  the 
inorganic  universe  has  turned  thousands  and  millions 
to  atheism.  The  intellect  denies  such  a  God  the  war- 
rant of  fact  or  of  logic,  and  the  heart  rejects  him  as  a  kind 
of  jumble  of  Fate,  Devil,  and  God,  the  compassionless 
deity  of  all  pessimisms  and  self-deceptions,  and  the  fatal- 
istic servant  of  his  own  imperfections  and  contradictions. 
Distinguish !  Fate  and  Evil  and  delayed  progress  exist, 
their  great  foundation  being  the  uncaused,  non-intelligent, 
inorganic  universe;  Intellect,  Freedom,  Goodness,  Life, 
and  Love  exist, — all  conjoined  in  the  God  we  see  working 
under  difficulties,  and  with  the  inorganic  universe  as  dead 
material.  Conjoin  these  two  types  of  fact  or  existence 
prior  to  biological  history,  and  no  mind  thoroughly  com- 
prehending the  absoluteness  of  the  logical  contradiction 
could  act  or  persist  under  such  a  condition,  and  the  heart 
that  loves  goodness  or  beauty  is  at  once  chilled  to  icy  death. 
If  one  prefer  to  make  a  finite  God,  a  non-omnipotent  strug- 
gling divinity,  the  cause  and  controller  of  the  whole  inor- 
ganic universe,  I  see  no  advantage  therein  over  the  dualism 
of  life  and  matter  that  I  urge,  and  that  confronts  us  in  every 
biologic  fact.  With  the  latter  belief  the  mind  is  free,  the 
heart  religious,  and  sympathy  springs  unbidden  for  Him 
who  in  and  all  about  us  is  heroically  at  work  against 
intractable  material  and  tremendous  difficulty.  With  the 


32        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

former  belief  the  facts  are  at  variance,  and  from  a  tragically 
perplexed  mind  and  heart,  doubt  and  despair  spring  un- 
bidden. 

BUDDHISM  is  the  most  pathetic  fact  in  the  world's  his- 
tory. It  is  the  heart-broken  confession,  first  of  one  of  the 
largest  minds  and  hearts  that  has  ever  lived  on  this  earth, 
that  God's  tremendous  labor  of  incarnation  and  world- 
revivication  is  a  failure  and  must  be  renounced.  In  the 
acceptance  of  this  conclusion  by  so  large  a  proportion  of 
the  human  race,  the  confession  gains  a  tragic  grandeur 
and  awfulness  that  reveal  the  terrible  struggle  of  Biologos 
to  perpetuate  the  human  race,  and  for  centuries  how  ter- 
rifyingly  near  catastrophe  He  was.  As  Buddha  and  every 
Buddhist  was  nothing  less  than  incarnate  Biologos  Himself, 
in  specialized  and  functional  form,  the  solemn  tragedy 
reveals  the  very  face  of  the  suffering,  half-failing  God. 

But  while  this  glancing  aspect  shows  the  long  suffering 
and  plaintive  side  of  failure  and  abnegation,  we  must  not 
forget  that  it  is  only  partial,  and  that  it  is  the  average, 
the  massed  expression  of  the  "  composite  photograph," 
that  reveals  the  permanent  and  essential  expression  of  the 
divine  physiognomy.  If  the  great  world-drama  was  a 
failure  in  India  and  in  Buddhism,  elsewhere  the  hero's 
face  shone  with  virility  and  victory.  Greece  and  Israel 
were  ripening  while  India  decayed.  Here  was  youth, 
while  there,  the  machinery  of  life  seemingly  obtained  the 
control  and  exhausted  the  ingenuity  of  the  engineer. 
Blind  forces  got  the  upper-hand  of  spontaneity,  habit 
crystallized  into  dead  routine  which  the  divine  freedom 
and  vitality  could  not  break  up.  Life  got  imprisoned  in 
formalities  and  class-interests,  the  sense  of  play  and  victory 
faded  out,  and  for  that  people  and  time  all  that  the  keen- 
est intelligence  could  see  was  eternal  pain  and  failure  ;  all 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  33 

that  the  most  heroic  ingenuity  could  devise  was  a  way  of 
release  by  return  to  Nirvana's  renunciation  of  desire  and 
incarnation ;  all  that  the  sublimest  love  could  do  was  to 
sacrifice  power,  pleasure,  life,  ay,  even  Nirvana  itself,  until 
all  others  should  first  have  entered  its  blissful  portals. 

A  powerful  factor  contributing  to  this  pessimism  was 
the  unquestioning  acceptance  from  Brahminism  of  the 
doctrine  of  transmigration.  It  seems  strange  that  this 
race  of  consummate  metaphysicians  should  have  devel- 
oped this  doctrine  to  such  extreme  exaggeration,  and  that 
it  should  have  become  so  woven  into  the  very  texture  of 
its  psychological  structure.  The  reason  of  this,  of  course, 
is  that  it  is  such  a  profound  truth.  No  great  belief  of  a 
large  body  of  people  can  be  without  a  basis  of  fact.  It 
will  always  be  found  to  rest  upon  a  partial  truth.  The 
greater  part  of  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  is  the  truth 
that  under  a  different  name  we  have  locked  up  in  the 
mystery  of  heredity, — a  continental  mystery  upon  the 
shores  of  which  some  of  the  discoverers  of  science  have 
begun  to  try  to  land.  The  incomprehensible  phase  of  the 
Indian  belief  is  the  haphazard  way  the  disembodied  spirit 
gets  its  new  incarnation.  In  a  universe  to  them  most  or- 
derly and  rigidly  regulated,  this  new  housing  of  the  freed 
soul  appeared,  as  it  seems,  to  be  pure  accident.  One  must 
not  kill  a  flea,  because  it  might  be  the  soul  of  one's  grand- 
father. 

This  element  of  chance  in  a  world  so  law-bound,  and  in 
so  weighty  a  matter,  gives  us  pause  and  excuse  for  reflec- 
tion. It  certainly  has  this  much  of  significance,  that  it 
shows  recognition  of  the  element  of  chance  and  accident, 
recognition  too  by  deep  minds,  keenly  metaphysical,  and 
by  millions  of  them,  through  thousands  of  years  of  history. 
To  the  pompous  scientific  Louis  Fourteenths  of  our  mod- 


34       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ern  type  of  thinkers  who  are  ever  harping  on  "  the  orderly 
government  of  all  phenomena  by  unbreakable  law,"  and 
such  like  bosh,  the  conviction  of  the  Oriental  mind  may 
have  no  disquieting  effect.  It  is  a  thankless  task  to  say 
to  them,  first,  that  "law  "  is  never  an  ab  extra  superposi- 
tion of  method  upon  facts,  but  is  merely  the  statement  of 
the  inherent  method  of  process  of  phenomena;  second, 
that  even  in  physics  the  fact  of  one  happening  falling  upon 
the  fact  of  an  unrelated  process  produces  a  chance  or  ac- 
cidental sequence.  That  a  fern  leaf  in  a  coal-seam  should 
lie  east  or  west  is  accident,  and  that  the  coal  stratum 
should  "  dip  "  in  one  direction  of  the  compass  is  due  to 
unpredictable  or  accidental  causes.  Moreover,  in  biologic 
phenomena  the  mechanic  rigidity  or  lawfulness  of  inert 
matter  seems  to  impress  upon  them  almost  all  the  legal 
method  they  take  on.  The  only  laws  to  which  there  is 
no  exception  as  important  as  the  law  itself,  is  some  large 
generalization  or  colorless  abstraction  that  leaves  spon- 
taneity and  accident  an  adequate  play-room.  In  the  realm 
of  free  spirit,  as  in  the  pre-incarnating  Biologos,  and  in  ar- 
tistic creation,  in  the  sweep  of  dream  and  in  the  flashing 
of  imagination,  freedom  knows  no  law  and  laughs  at  pre- 
vision. 

The  sin  of  intellect  of  Buddha  and  of  his  followers 
consisted  in  non-recognition  of  the  work  of  Biologos,  and 
in  not  perceiving  the  living  God  behind  and  in  living 
things.  They  had  no  penetrating  power  to  see  this  vision 
of  the  unseen.  The  distinction  between  the  living  artist 
and  the  dead  material  was  not  clear.  The  sin  of  char- 
acter or  emotion  followed  naturally  on  this  intellectual 
sin:  they  were  disloyal.  Biologos  never  gives  up;  He  is 
never  indeed  altogether  conquered  ;  He  is  among  Polar 
ice  mountains,  in  ocean  depths,  and  even  in  the  trackless 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  35 

deserts  created  by  man's  improvidence.  He  is  always 
trying  to  win  the  world  to  Himself.  The  first  of  all 
human  duties,  the  root-principle  of  all  duties,  is  loyalty  to 
God. 'Had  Buddha  but  studied  God's  way  and  Being 
more  accurately,  had  he  but  been  His  loyal  acceptor  and 
helper,  the  unexampled  power  of  his  influence  might 
have  won  India  from  caste  and  despair,  and  rescued  her 
from  a  history  of  submission  and  alien  domination.  But 
to  Buddha  there  was  no  God,  and  therefore  no  way  of 
God.  Cycles  of  formalistic  and  dead  religion  had 
quenched  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  the  perception  of 
the  supernatural ;  hard  habit  had  hidden  from  them  the 
conception  that  spontaneous  intelligence  ruled  even 
biological  phenomena,  as  muck  as  it  could, — and,  with  the 
fading  of  the  perception  of  God,  came  in  the  Godless 
religion, — although,  to  speak  more  properly,  Buddhism  is 
but  a  people's  philosophy  of  method  of  gaining  release 
from  the  thraldom  of  incarnation  or  material  form.  See- 
ing no  Father  behind  the  veiling  of  organic  events,  it 
naturally  came  about  that  the  little  group  of  fatherless 
children  must  bind  themselves  together  more  earnestly  in 
brotherly  love  and  mutual  helpfulness  ;  wherefore  arose  a 
missionary  spirit,  a  purity  and  a  tenderness  of  heart,  and 
a  self-sacrifice,  rivalled  nowhere  unless  by  the  early 
Christians.  The  fact  is  a  magnificent  contradiction  of  the 
shallow  nonsense  of  some  dogmatists  who  have  stoutly 
averred  that  a  lively  degree  of  morality  and  love  cannot 
exist  without  a  theistic  belief.  If  Buddhism  may  be 
called  a  religion  it  is  certainly  an  atheistic  religion. 

Born  out  of  Brahminism,  the  dying  sigh  of  a  failed 
civilization,  Buddhism,  if  not  justifiable,  is  at  least 
explainable,  and  commands  our  sympathy  and  pity.  Not 
so  modern  pessimism.  In  the  Europe  and  America  of 


36       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

to-day  fruit  awaits  the  picking,  opportunity  comes  to 
meet  virility,  and  positive  badness  in  a  child  is  less 
repulsive  than  whine  and  sulk.  While  the  hibernating 
Schopenhauer  was  grinding  out  his  ursine  philosophy,  the 
brave  Goethe  was  singing  imperishable  songs,  his  eyes 
agleam  with  the  light  of  the  rising  sun  of  Science.  If 
Goethe's  craniology  and  his  optics  were  as  errorful  as 
Schopenhauer's  phantasmagoric  idealism  and  diabolic  will, 
the  faithful  one  was  right,  the  faithless  one  all  wrong. 
Had  the  disloyal  one  but  devoted  his  splendid  power  of 
psychological  analysis,  the  misused  verve  and  brilliancy  of 
his  incomparable  intellect,  to  the  service  either  of  God  or 
of  man,  what  a  helper  he  might  have  been  !  Instead  of 
that,  a  hinderer,  disloyal  beyond  compare.  And  one  sin 
always  treads  upon  another's  heels : — From  the  strong, 
headstrong  thinker  have  sprung  a  sorry  brood  of  croak- 
ers and  maudlin  sentimentalists,  whose  puerile  pessimism 
is  little  else  than  the  voice  of  ennui  and  exhausted 
sensualism.  These  echoes  of  the  feigned  despair  of  a 
perverse  but  virile  thinker  are  without  every  attribute 
that  wins  for  their  master  some  measure  of  reluctant 
admiration.  They  are  belated  births,  misplaced  in  a 
world  where  success  awaits  the  thinker  and  worker  of 
every  type. 

CHRISTIANITY,  it  cannot  be  denied,  has  failed  to  con- 
quer not  only  the  world,  but  even  its  own  communicants. 
In  great  part  this  arises  from  the  indefiniteness  of  its 
basic  creed  and  of  its  essential  characteristic.  There  is 
neither  logical  unity  nor  common  assent  on  the  part  of 
those  calling  themselves  Christians  as  to  what  the  ideals 
and  aims  of  Christians  should  be.  An  unbiassed  ethnic 
student  can  find  little  or  no  warrant  in  the  words  of  Christ 
for  the  course  of  Christian  history,  even  when  the  church 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  37 

was  most  powerful.  The  motive  force  of  St.  Paul's  fervor 
was  beyond  question  the  belief  in  Christ's  resurrection 
from  death  and  his  literal  second  coming.  The  manufac- 
ture of  a  trinitarian  creed  and  the  establishment  of  a 
Roman  Catholic  church  with  its  pomp  and  ceremony  were 
as  little  dreamed  of  by  the  Galilean  carpenter  as  the 
truths  of  spectrum  analysis  or  as  the  nature  of  civilization 
in  the  planet  Mars.  If  Christ's  teaching  means  anything 
the  whole  history  of  medieval  asceticism  was  unchristian, 
and  for  a  thousand  years  the  bitter  warfare  of  the  Inqui- 
sition and  of  official  Christianity  against  the  irresistible 
on-coming  victory  of  reason,  freedom,  and  science  is,  if 
proof  were  needed,  the  most  powerful  proof,  either  that 
Christ  had  not  christianized  his  Christianity  or  that  the 
human  mind  must  seek  its  religious  incentives,  ideas,  and 
control  outside  of  Christian  precept  and  example.  The 
division  of  the  church  into  Roman,  Greek,  and  Protestant, 
with  the  ludicrous  schismatization  of  the  latter  group, 
each  set  at  heart  thoroughly  convinced  that  it  alone 
represents  the  founder,  leaves  but  two  alternative  con- 
clusions to  the  dispassionate  student :  either  this  "  Gos- 
pel "  of  Jesus  was  too  indefinite  to  cohere  into  a  body 
of  authoritative  and  understood  truth  ;  or  his  personal 
influence  was  incapable  of  impressing  upon  his  followers 
this  truth  with  sufficient  force  or  momentum  to  make  it 
carry  beyond  the  enthusiasm  of  his  little  band  of  personal 
followers.  The  undebatable  deduction  is  again  alterna- 
tive ;  either  that  by  thousands  of  years  his  teaching  was 
superhuman,  in  advance  of  his  age,  beyond  the  compre- 
hension and  actualization  of  his  professed  followers  dur- 
ing all  this  time,  or  that  it  was  a  tremendous  error.  From 
every  logical  impasse  we  are  forced  back  to  conclude  that 
individual  judgment,  based  upon  entire  lack  of  prejudice, 


38        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

upon  faultless  erudition,  and  after  at  least  many  years  of 
the  deepest  investigation  and  study  of  original  docu- 
ments of  the  entire  history  of  all  branches  of  the  church, 
and  especially  of  the  reported  works  and  life  of  Jesus, — 
that  individual  judgment  must  decide  what  to  do  about 
the  acceptance  or  the  rejection,  as  a  whole  or  in  part,  of 
the  Christian  church,  or  of  the  "  Christian  revelation." 
Nothing  less  than  this  will  satisfy  absolute  intellectual 
honesty.  This  only  a  few  scholars  can  do,  and  it  is  sad 
that  the  few  that  have  done  it  reach  non-unitary  con- 
clusions. In  the  hurried  sweep  of  our  little  conscious 
being  through  the  cycle  of  life's  changes,  interests,  and 
duties,  the  majority  can  only  look  hastily  about  them,  a 
little  way  before  and  after,  catch  here  and  there  a  maxim 
of  wisdom,  a  cheering  word,  the  glimpse  of  a  precious 
example  to  follow,  the  hurt  of  a  sin  to  avoid.  Life  is 
certainly  for  action,  emotion,  and  perception,  not  for 
exegesis  and  biblical  criticism.  Christ  flung  his  undying 
message  upon  the  winds  and  waters  of  world-accident, 
and  all  may  find  it  if  they  look  for  it  rightly  and  care- 
fully, bewaring  of  the  organizations  and  creeds  that 
would  officially  minister  it. 

I  opine  that  the  God  of  Christ  was  far  wiser  than  the 
spirit  of  Christianity.  Jesus,  by  a  wisdom  that  seems 
superhuman,  or  by  a  fervor  of  emotion  that  gave  him  no 
time  to  organize,  left  no  written  word  or  authoritative 
statement.  The  circumstances  of  his  life  also  conspired  to 
the  same  end.  The  pathos  of  the  world-wide  gulf  between 
himself  and  his  followers  becomes  awfully  tragic  :  "  Could 
ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  "  Through  the  dark 
night  of  those  surroundings,  the  impenetrableness  both  of 
crucifier  and  follower  to  such  ideas  as  his,  there  flashes 
the  repetitive  lightning  of  a  divine  wisdom  and  a  divine 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  39 

love  that  strove  equally  and  vainly  against  the  sin  and  the 
formalism  of  his  followers.  In  the  glow  of  his  death  the 
reflection  of  these  silent  lightnings  could  certainly  never 
have  reached  our  eyes  had  it  not  been  for  the  accident  or 
for  the  miracle  of  St.  Paul  the  persecutor — one  who  never 
saw  Jesus.  It  is  indeed  most  weird  and  wonderful  to 
note  how,  again  and  always,  the  significance  and  precious- 
ness  of  Christ's  message  was  passed  on  by  hands  and 
hearts  that  knew  it  not.  In  conversion  and  life-long  mis- 
sionary work  Paul  was  dazzled  by  it  rather  than  under- 
stood it ;  creed-makers  juggled  with  it ;  ecclesiasticism 
stole  it  and  built  upon  it ;  sects  wrangled  over  it — all 
fascinated  by  it,  but  all  unconscious  of  its  vital  import 
and  content.  Such  are  the  ironies  of  history. 

But  more  mordant  still  becomes  the  irony  when  it  is 
seen  that  this  unappreciated  message  of  Christ  has  been 
carried  by  those  it  was  destined  to  destroy.  It  was  all  the 
while  at  work  upon  and  against  the  hearts  and  institutions 
of  its  defenders  and  carriers.  The  most  unchristian  and 
antichristian  facts  of  the  world,  the  Nicene  creed,  the 
Catholic  church,  Asceticism,  the  Inquisition,  Versailles, 
Bourbonism,  and  Calvinism, — all  have  prided  themselves 
as  being  defenders  of  a  faith  that  in  very  truth  was 
secretly  opposed  to  them  and  that  was  slowly,  silently, 
undermining  them.  Had  they  but  realized  its  signifi- 
cance, how  they  would  have  hated  it !  Thus  God  com- 
pels messengers  to  convey  to  new  masters  the  sealed 
orders  of  their  own  execution. 

But  pride  not  yourself  Churchman,  Catholic  or  Protes- 
tant, Orthodox  or  Heterodox.  You  are  also  ignorant, 
sinful,  unconscious  bearers  of  a  message  you  understand 
little  better  than  your  official  forefathers.  You  also  carry 
the  order  to  a  better  Master  of  the  Future  for  your  own 


40        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

death-sentence.  You,  in  your  way  are  quite  as  ludicrous 
an  exponent  of  the  gospel  of  father-love  and  brother-love 
as  battling  Hun-Bishops,  Torquemada,  or  Pompadourist. 
You  have  not  seen  the  silent,  searching,  tender  eyes  of  the 
yearning  invisible  Christ,  waiting  through  centuries  until  by 
your  ignorant  hands  his  word  shall  at  last  reach  the  recep- 
tive sympathetic  heart  that  knows,  that  understands,  and 
that  executes.  You  are  still  not  his  knights,  but  servants 
still  of  the  sin  of  all  centuries,  the  sin  of  luxury  and  of 
self-comfort.  Nor  is  the  illusion  ever  quite  complete  in 
your  own  consciousness.  You  cannot  quite  deceive  your- 
selves or  others.  There  stand  the  words,  gloss  them  as  you 
please,  and  ignore  them  as  you  may.  There  also  are  the 
men  your  brothers,  they  who  vicariously  minister  to  your 
physical  comfort  and  who  vicariously  suffer  for  your  sins. 
There  also  are  the  untaught,  mistaught,  sin-taught  children, 
there  the  vicious  and  the  filthy,  there  the  corrupt  politician 
making  your  laws,  there  million-fold  parasitism,  there  the 
habit-enslaved,  the  insane,  the  poor,  the  diseased.  From 
every  page  of  the  Jesus-records  there  blazes  and  burns  the 
unquenchable  fire  of  social  love,  and  the  duty  of  socialism: 
"  Go  sell  what  thou  hast  and  follow  me  "  ;  "  Inasmuch  as 
ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least."  Whilever  there  exists  in- 
justice, a  wronged,  suffering,  sinful,  or  ignorant  one,  it  is 
only  the  sham  Christian  that  can  enjoy  ease  and  luxury, 
and  that  can  build  or  have  aught  to  do  with  luxurious 
churches.  Luxurious,  time-wasting,  and  time-saving  "  wor- 
ship of  God  "  is  in  Christ's  eyes  the  veriest  acme  of  hypo- 
critic  sin.  Foolish  folk  compound  with  their  consciences 
by  building  useless  churches,  instead  of  inquiring  why  the 
more  churches  there  are  the  more  empty  they  are. 

RELIGION,  the  mere  fact  of  its  existence,  and  especially 
of  its  tremendous  role  in  and  before  all  history,  if  anything 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  41 

could  do  so,  should  give  the  lie  to  materialism  and  deter- 
minism. It  confutes  the  one  and  confounds  the  other. 
Here  is  a  somewhat  as  evidently  ab  extra  as  it  is  law- 
less ;  and  yet  it  is  everywhere  found  dominating  new 
nations  and  enslaving  old  ones,  the  cause  of  innumerable 
wars  with  weapons  or  with  words  only,  an  agent  that 
turns  all  forecast  topsy-turvy,  an  ever  powerful  fact  at 
least,  for  good  or  for  evil.  There  is  much  latter-day  in- 
crease of  the  unreligious,  and  of  the  irreligious ;  of  the 
agnostic,  who  under  a  name  thus  euphuistically  seeks  to 
conceal  his  atheism  and  materialism  ;  and  of  his  Philistine- 
brother,  the  so-called  "scientist"  who  thinks  "science" 
conterminous  with  physics,  and  whose  brief  creed  is,  No 
God  but  Evolution,  and  Spencer  his  prophet. 

These  logicians  most  stoutly  maintain  that  all  things 
take  place  according  to  invariable  laws,  the  chief  of  which 
is  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  If  so,  then  whence  and 
wherefore  religion  ?  But  when  it  does  not  suit  his  pur- 
pose, i.  e.,  the  support  of  his  prejudice,  there  is  nothing  this 
excellent  logician  cares  for  less  than  for  genuine  logic. 
Belief  in  an  extra-mundane  cause,  a  belief  dominant 
in  all  the  affairs  of  men,  from  savagery  to  civilization 
would  seem  to  mortal  and  human  logicians  to  imply  the 
existence  of  that  cause  itself.  If  the  predominant  fac- 
tor of  all  evolution  is  the  interaction  of  organism  and 
environment,  "  the  reaction  of  sensitive  protoplasm  to 
external  stimulus  and  change,"  as  we  are  tirelessly  told, 
then  whence  and  where  the  "  external  religious  stimulus  " 
to  which  the  organism  has  been  so  frightfully  and  per- 
sistently reagent  ?  The  farcical  attempts  to  explain  the 
religious  belief  of  the  world  as  ghost-worship  and  ancestor- 
worship  are  pleasant  reading  for  the  psychological  humorist. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  in  a  world  ruled  purely  by  in- 


42        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

exorable  law  the  simplest  religious  idea  could  never  have 
gained  admission. 

But  if  religion  and  duty  have  been  the  twin  voices  of 
God,  why  is  it  that  they  have  so  often  spoken  the  com- 
mands of  the  devil?  The  fact  is  most  undeniable.  The 
answer  is  threefold  :  I.  The  role  of  religious  ideas  in 
the  world  has  in  great  part  been  that  of  psychological 
tutelage,  a  metaphysical  gymnastic  exercise  for  the  mind, 
against  the  time  when  it  should  undertake  the  real  drama 
of  rational,  religious,  and  ethical  life.  All  processes  must 
have  initial  and  intermediate  stages,  and  the  world  pro- 
cess is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  2.  The  respect  of  Bi- 
ologos  for  the  freedom  of  rational  creatures  and  their 
development  toward  a  freedom  like  His  own,  presupposes 
a  schooling  and  apprenticeship  in  virtue,  the  perpetual 
power  of  choice,  the  tentative  trial  of  evil  in  its  thousand- 
fold protean  disguises.  Any  government  of  His  that 
would  interfere  with  the  freedom  of  man  would  defeat  the 
progressive  cultivation  of  spontaneous  ethical  and  rational 
activity,  itself  one  of  the  ultimate  ends  of  the  biological 
world-process.  3.  However  crude  and  apparently  far  from 
the  highest  religion,  the  general  religious  status  of  a  tribe 
or  nation  is  that  for  which  it  is  adapted,  and  which  cor- 
responds to  the  phase  of  its  development  and  of  its 
modifying  and  imperative  necessities. 

Any  religious  idea  or  custom  whatever  stands  as  incon- 
trovertible proof  that  biological  phenomena  are  not  solely 
those  of  mechanical  action  and  reaction,  that  sensation 
and  nutrition  are  not  the  only  laws  of  organic  develop- 
ment. I  conceive  the  origin  and  development  of  religion 
in  human  history  to  be  that  of  a  free  discovery  and  an  in- 
ference, rather  than  that  of  an  imposed  command  ;  religion 
had  its  origin  within  rather  than  without ;  it  is  a  discovery 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  43 

rather  than  a  command  ;  a  progressive  educative  finding  of 
the  Father,  rather  than  any  revelation  from  the  Father.  All 
truth  is  acquirement  and  reward  of  searching,  religious 
truth  certainly  not  excepted.  Christ's  revelation,  his  intui- 
tion or  finding  of  religious  truth,  the  best  and  purest  the 
world  has  ever  listened  to,  was,  from  present  standpoints, 
sadly  deficient,  and  in  some  respects  it  was  erroneous. 
Many  things  that  sound  strange  to  us  may  be  due  to  the 
misreporting  of  his  cloudy-minded,  unappreciative  follow- 
ers. That  indeed  is  a  sad  possibility  in  reference  to  every 
line  of  the  gospels.  A  hundred  sayings  show  the  great 
mind  adapting  the  great  truth  to  the  almost  infantile  com- 
prehension of  his  childish  audience.  We  must,  of  course, 
throw  out  the  whole  disturbing  illusion  of  myth  and 
miracle  that  fond  love  always  weaves  about  the  persons  of 
its  adored  religious  teachers.  The  doctrine  of  non-resist- 
ance ;  the  teaching  of  his  literal  second  coming  to  judge 
the  quick  and  the  dead  ;  the  non-interest  in  government, 
good  or  bad,  implicate  in  "  Render  unto  Caesar,  etc.," — 
these  and  many  more  are  instances  of  positive  error.  Of 
things  omitted,  it  may  be  noted  that  no  word  exists  from 
him  as  to  kindness  to  animals,  and  especially  as  to  the 
tremendous  importance  and  truth  of  God's  revelation  of 
Himself  in  vegetable  and  animal  life.  Thrift,  a  primal 
duty  of  man,  is  in  many  precepts  and  instances  distinctly 
scorned  or  discouraged,  whilst  of  family  duties,  sexual,  and 
other  matters,  there  was  a  negation  or  an  aloofness  that 
would  but  little  help  poor  laboring  men  and  women  in 
their  trials  and  temptations.  He  strove,  of  course,  as  is 
plainly  seen,  to  give  his  followers  a  new  birth,  to  make  all 
their  living  spring  from  a  new  motive,  expressed  in  the 
eleventh  commandment,  the  essence  and  summarization  of 
all  his  teaching.  Thus  acting,  all  minor  rules  would  be 


44        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

unnecessary,  and  all  questions  of  subordinate  ethics  would 
at  once  attain  solution. 

Being  a  Jew  there  could  be  no  doubt  and  no  merit 
about  the  theism  of  Jesus.  There  is  personality  and  di- 
vinity behind  material  things — the  truth  that  Brahmin, 
Buddhist,  and  Confucian  failed  to  see.  The  unique  teach- 
ing-service of  Jesus  was  in  the  sole  command  that  we  love 
instead  of  fear  Him,  supplemented  by  that  other*  that  all 
men  are  to  be  loved  as  one  loves  self.  And  certainly  no 
human  wisdom  has  ever  reached  a  more  compact,  com- 
prehensive, and  enduring  summarization  of  religious  and 
ethical  truth. 

There  is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  all  history  than 
the  persistent  and  almost  universal  practice  of  the  human 
mind  of  religion,  and  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  a 
hyperphysical  governing  intelligence.  Against  the  obsti- 
nacy and  unresponse  of  the  inorganic  world  ;  in  the  face 
of  death,  and  what  was  worse,  of  life-long  suffering  of  the 
innocent ;  in  the  face  of  vicarious  pain,  of  unmerited  and 
inexplainable  poverty  or  luxury,  man  still  believed  in  a 
ruler  and  a  cause  of  living  things.  He  did  not  care  a  fig 
for  the  illogicality  of  the  belief  with  which  the  atheist 
quite  logically  mocked  him. 

What  was  the  function  of  this  belief?  It  corresponded 
only  partially  to  the  truth,  and  it  gave  him  infinite  suffer- 
ing. Why  should  such  a  true-untrue  and  inexplicable  thing 
have  dominated  his  "environment-reacting"  organism? 
On  his  part  it  was  a  perception  of  fact  that  his  intellect 
had  not  the  strength  and  training  to  correct  and  limit  ac- 
cording to  the  teachings  of  things,  and  yet  it  was  a  belief 
too  precious  and  true  to  renounce  altogether.  May  we 
not  say  that  the  function  of  the  belief  was  to  preserve  the 

*  Both  quoted  and  acknowledged  as  from  Moses. 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  45 

essentials  of  the  truth,  to  keep  the  tradition  until  such 
time  as  living  perception  and  vision  of  the  whole  fact 
should  become  possible  ?  It  was  the  assertion  that  God 
existed,  however  much  determinism  and  godlessness 
seemed  to  prevail.  The  process  from  pure  animalism  to  a 
stage  of  civilization  hardly  yet  reached,  was  one  that  would 
every  day  have  ended  in  disaster  without  the  saving  fact 
of  hope,  and  the  illogical  conviction  of  final  victory. 
Viewed  simply  in  the  light  of  logic,  the  readings  of  the 
day's  signs  and  the  deductions  of  the  day's  facts  could 
end  only  in  an  acknowledgment  of  failure  and  in  a  re- 
nunciation of  endeavor.  Buddha  drew  the  conclusion  with 
infallible  accuracy.  But  they  reckon  ill  who  leave  God 
out  of  the  count,  and  God  is  in  the  count  despite  all  the 
Buddhas  and  atheists  of  all  time.  Religion  and  its  ever- 
lasting twin-deity,  Duty,  held  men's  faces  to  the  east  until 
such  time  as  the  sun  should  rise.  It  still  holds  them 
toward  the  sun  until  the  surgeon  of  science  shall  remove 
the  cataracts  of  ignorance,  of  habit,  and  of  prejudice,  and 
they  shall  see  God.  Dazzled  and  dazed  the  scientific 
mind  is  at  present  like  the  aphakic,  suddenly  brought 
to  see,  but  not  recognizing  or  knowing  what  he  sees. 
It  still  sees  men  as  trees  walking,  and  does  not  know 
.that  what  it  sees  is  at  last  the  benignant  and  beckoning 
God  himself. 

Religious  belief  was  thus  and  literally  a  "  saving"  faith. 
It  kept  men  from  despair.  It  was  one  of  the  safeguards 
the  human  mind  created  to  carry  it  through  the  process 
of  humanization.  Without  its  staying  and  supporting, 
the  monkey  would  never  have  become  man,  nor  the  man 
philosopher.  It  was  the  sine  qua  non  of  civilization, 
and  to  future  species,  it  will  certainly  have  this  much 
of  validity. 


46      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

LIMITATIONS  AND  SUPPLEMENTATIONS  OF  THE  ELEV- 
ENTH COMMANDMANT  are  necessary,  even  by  those 
accepting  it  most  heartily.  In  almost  any  statement  of 
any  truth,  it  is  quite  possible,  and  upon  the  philosophic 
thinker  quite  obligatory,  to  find  a  large  measure  of  error 
or  of  exaggeration,  and,  in  the  absolute  reverse  of  the 
statement,  a  large  measure  of  truth.  This  is  the  sufficient 
basis  of  failure  of  all  monisms,  deductive  systems  of 
thought,  of  all  one-sided  idealisms  and  one-sided  material- 
isms. Hence  the  stringent  necessity  of  testing  every 
statement  by  experience,  or  by  the  first-hand  study  of 
facts.  The  human  mind  has  been  produced  or  developed 
as  a  reflector,  a  perceiver,  and  a  moulder  of  facts,  and 
therein  lies  its  beauty  and  power.  Just  here  arises  the 
criticism  of  almost  all  religions ;  they  are  deductive 
systems :  they  superimpose  theory,  statement,  or  emotion, 
upon  the  facts ;  they  are  not  the  products  of  experience, 
but  they  are  judgments  or  ideals  antedating  experience. 
Hence  they  are  often  found  to  need  correction  or  out- 
filling  by  experience. 

The  law  of  love  of  God  and  man,  as  true  and  as  bind- 
ing as  any  law  can  be,  still  needs  interpretation  by  the 
living  intelligence,  needs  adaptation  to  the  needs  and 
ideals  of  the  individual  life,  and  of  all  living  beings  col- 
lectively considered.  In  such  interpretation  and  adapta- 
tion it  will  be  found  that  its  absolute  sweep  of  application 
will  suffer  limitation,  and  that  always  and  everywhere  it 
is  not  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  furnish  a  rule  of  life. 
Such  a  primary  limitation  is  the  truth  that  the  connota- 
tion if  not  the  denotation  of  the  word  God,  according  to 
all  old  habits  of  thought,  is  omnipotence  or  absolute  crea- 
tion and  control  of  all  phenomena,  organic  or  inorganic. 
But  it  cannot  be  represented  in  thought,  and  it  never  was 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  47 

observed  in  fact,  that  the  physical  universe  was  either 
created,  or  in  any  least  way  (except  through  the  great 
incarnation  scheme)  controllable  by  God.  To  love  an 
omnipotent  God  is  psychologically  as  impossible  as  it  is 
to  represent  such  a  being  in  thought.  No  faintest  thrill 
of  tender  emotion  ever  went  from  a  human  soul  to  a 
God  clearly  conceived  as  omnipotent.  Whatever  the 
creed  and  the  theologian  demanded,  the  wiser  human 
heart,  blindly  knowing  a  better  way,  always  anthropomor- 
phized his  God,  and  this  process  consisted  essentially  in 
leaving  out  of  sight  and  out  of  thought  His  supposed 
omnipotence.  To  have  the  power  and  not  to  help,  chills 
every  possibility  of  love  in  a  normally  made  being, 
and  when,  as  in  some  aspects  of  Mohammedanism, 
Judaism,  and  especially  in  Calvinism,  the  thought  of 
omnipotence  gets  comparative  domination,  God  at  once 
becomes  a  sort  of  devilish  determinism,  or  grinding 
machine,  whom  one  may  fear,  but  from  His  worshippers 
even  His  omnipotence  could  wrench  no  spark  of  love. 
Christ  should  therefore  have  given  his  disciples  some  hint 
that  God  does  wish  but  is  not  able,  rather  than  that  He  is 
able  but  does  not  wish.  There  is  no  Fatherliness  in  the 
"  Great  First  Cause,  least  understood." 

Religion,  in  common  with  all  other  activities  of  the 
human  mind,  has  suffered  from  man's  general  indifference 
to  the  fact  and  significance  of  the  world  of  living  nature 
that  surrounded  him  and  of  which  he  was  outcome  and 
part.  Standing  before  the  wonderful  panorama  of  nature, 
man,  in  the  first  place,  confused  the  living  and  non-living 
into  one  indiscriminate  jumble,  and  thus  prevented  him- 
self from  seeing  the  evidences  of  intelligence,  design,  and 
tendency  so  clear  to  our  eyes  in  the  world  of  living  forms. 
In  the  second  place,  he  had  not  yet  freed  himself  suffi- 


48        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ciently  from  the  egotism  resulting  from  the  "  struggle  for 
existence,"  to  be  able  to  perceive  an  objective  fact  except 
in  relation  to  his  own  selfishness.  As  a  consequence  of 
the  necessity  he  was  under  of  ruthlessly  dominating  and 
using  everything  that  could  be  of  service  to  him  in  order 
to  secure  his  own  individuality  in  the  thousand-fold  war- 
fare of  his  daily  life,  things  that  had  no  relation  to  that 
service  became  as  if  non-existent,  and  only  just  that 
aspect  of  the  serviceable  thing  that  yielded  the  service 
was  known  or  attended  to.  Hence  until  now  that  which 
was  neither  tool  nor  food  nor  enemy,  was  ignored.  Even 
now  that  insane  fury  of  clutching  more  than  we  can  either 
eat  or  use,  called  money-making,  and  the  shooting  of  ani- 
mals for  "  sport,"  are  survivals  of  the  barbaric  struggle, 
and  show  how  little  we  have  outlived  the  cruel  time. 
Hence  the  essence  and  scope  of  religion  was  the  relation 
of  the  human  personality  to  an  extra-mundane  person- 
ality. The  study,  knowledge,  and  love  of  God,  as  mani- 
fested in  organic  life,  was  practically  unknown. 

The  points  toward  which  I  have  been  looking  in  a  too 
long  introduction  are  that  not  only  can  one  not  love 
inactive  omnipotence,  but  one  cannot  love  an  inactive 
God  of  any  kind.  There  is  hardly  any  love  of  God 
psychologically  possible  except  as  one  loves  the  work  that 
God  is  doing  in  the  world.  There  are  numberless  reasons 
for  this  fact,  among  which  may  be  mentioned  the  evident 
one  that  solely  in  the  affairs  of  men,  one's  fellows  in  time 
or  in  history,  there  is  no  striking  evidence  of  God's  exist- 
ence or  of  His  government, — such  evidence,  I  mean,  as  the 
unerudite  and  unphilosophical  could  find  or  appreciate. 
Moreover,  without  nature-love  and  knowledge  (by  which 
of  course  is  meant  of  the  living  phenomena  of  nature) 
God  remains  a  sort  of  ab  extra  cause,  an  impersonal  some- 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  49 

what,  or  an  unknown  power.  There  is  no  adequate  or 
hardly  any  partial  realization  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
except  with  the  emotional  recognition  of  the  fact  that  he 
is  not  only  our  Father,  but,  in  as  exact  and  literal  and 
loving  a  sense,  that  he  is  also  the  Father  of  every  grass- 
blade,  plant,  fish,  insect,  or  animal  throughout  the  whole 
wide  world.  Through  insight  into  the  intent,  charac- 
ter, and  work  of  Biologos,  one  may  come  to  some  appre- 
ciable degree,  to  know  and  to  love  Him.  This  will  form 
the  basis  for  the  oft-talked-of  religion  of  science,  or  of 
the  future,  but  no  clear  eye  can  look  into  self  or  into  his 
fellow-Christians,  and  fail  to  see  that  love,  that  spontane- 
ous play  of  emotional  trust  and  cherishing,  is  not  possible 
toward  an  unknown,  impersonal,  and  vague  "  Great  First 
Cause,"  such  as  too  often  God  has  been  represented. 
No  wonder  that  the  study  of  "  secondary  causes  "  and 
"  influences  of  the  environment  "  seem  to  cheat  God  out 
of  his  slender  share  in  man's  life,  and  that  to  the  "  ad- 
vanced modern  thinker  "  the  world  seems  godless.  So 
unreal  a  divinity  is  easily  displaced  from  a  throne  so 
fragile.  Men  respect  the  phrase  in  lesson  and  reading, 
they  hear  and  assent,  but  they  do  not  love  an  unknown 
God.  It  may  be  said  that  the  soul  knows  its  Father 
directly,  that  personality  touches  personality  instantane- 
ously, and,  without  either  a  knowledge  of  history,  of  men, 
or  organic  nature  to  intermediate  or  to  aid,  it  adores  and 
loves  Him.  I  do  not  deny  it,  and  I  am  glad  to  believe  it,  but 
it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  a  highly  exceptional  fact,  and 
that,  far  from  what  one  would  naturally  expect  in  such 
cases,  the  direct  appreciation  and  immediateness  of  union 
leads  to  little  or  no  secondary  study  and  love  of  God's 
work  in  nature,  whilst  the  road  "  through  nature  to  nature's 
God  "  is  far  more  beautiful  and  more  often  travelled. 


50        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

To  these  and  to  many  other  reasons  that  might  be 
mentioned,  may  be  added  the  fact  that  the  placid  love  and 
study  of  objective  nature  is  necessary  to  win  the  mind 
from  the  egotistic  and  selfish  habit  of  all  previous  time, 
and  to  permit  the  recognition  of  the  large  impersonalities 
and  final  ends  of  biological  history,  toward  which  Biologos 
is  calmly  working  with  individuals,  types,  and  civilizations, 
as  his  tools  and  his  stepping-stones.  The  humility  of  true 
science  outdoes  the  humility  of  religion. 

To  the  command,  Thou  shalt  love  God  with  every  fiber 
of  thy  being,  there  must  therefore  be  added,  in  order  to 
make  the  command  possible  and  effective,  Thou  must  seek 
to  know  God,  sympathizing  with  Him  in  His  aims  and  in 
His  difficulties  as  shown  in  a  discriminating  love  of  His 
work  in  living  nature. 

As  to  the  second  part  of  the  Eleventh  Commandment, 
it  is  a  perfect  ideal  of  human  conduct,  but  like  all  ideals,  of 
course,  almost  never  realized,  or  realizable. 

The  whole  command,  indeed,  partakes  of  the  unattain- 
able that  characterizes  Christ's  life  and  the  lives  of  all 
those  who  have  approached  Christian  perfection,  or  who 
have  been  carried  off  their  feet  by  the  unearthly  enthu- 
siam  of  Christian  feeling.  A  sort  of  passionate  somnam- 
bulism seems  to  be  the  characteristic  of  strong  Christian 
feeling.  Jesus  seems  to  have  walked  in  a  kind  of  dreamy 
rapture,  oblivious  of  many  homely  but  distinctly  necessary 
virtues,  scorning  thrift,  frugality,  legislation,  government, 
schools,  settled  habits,  and  the  work-a-day  world.  One 
wonders  just  why  he  permitted  himself  to  be  crucified. 
The  terrible  words  wrenched  from  his  agonized  soul,  Why 
hast  Thou  forsaken  me,  point  to  mistake  and  subjective 
expectation  secretly  entertained  up  to  the  last  minute,  to 
of  observation  of  facts,  and  to  a  non-comprehen- 


B  R  A  F 


, 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  51 

sion  of  the  world  about  and  above.  His  beautiful  social- 
istic teaching  would  certainly  have  had  added  weight,  if 
he  had  stuck  to  his  carpenter-bench.  The  same  dream-like 
fervency  of  world-scorning  enthusiasm  is  seen  in  Paul's 
life,  and  in  that  of  the  early  Christians  and  Christian 
martyrs ;  it  broke  into  morbid  exaggeration  in  medieval 
crowd-delusions,  in  asceticism  and  in  the  crusades, — even  a 
children's  crusade  not  seeming  absurd  ;  sobered  by  Eng- 
lish stolidity  it  grasped  at  something  human  and  practical 
under  Cromwell ;  and  it  is  now  echoed  to  our  shores  in 
the  excesses  of  evangelical  Christianity  and  of  the  Salvation 
Army.  Psychologically  all  these  things  are  illustrations  of 
a  mental  law  or  habit  that  is  somewhat  common,  consisting 
in  the  luxury  or  in  the  utility  of  emotional  exaltation  and 
excess.  It  is  indeed  a  genuine  intoxication,  neurologically 
not  much  different  from  that  derived  from  alcoholic  stimu- 
lation, and  in  whatever  phase  presenting  itself  it  is  sub- 
jective, heedless  of  facts  and  of  consequences.  This  power 
of  the  mind  and  especially  of  crowds,  to  override  obstacle 
with  a  saint's  indifference,  or  by  a  flooding  rush  of  wild 
emotion,  has  doubtless  served  many  useful  purposes,  but 
it  has  often  also  led  the  hypnotic  and  frenzied  by  pain- 
ful roads  to  useless  death.  Surely  the  heroism  of  the 
present  and  of  the  future  must  be  a  heroism  of  home- 
keeping  virtues,  of  reflection,  and  of  quiet  persist- 
ence of  steady  emotion  throughout  a  life  of  loyalty  to 
God  and  to  man.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  can  be 
taken  neither  by  dreaming  ecstatics  nor  by  storming 
warriors. 

PROOFS  OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  GOD,  logical,  ontological, 
cosmological,  and  void-o'-logical  are  for  a  time  amusing, 
but  soon  become  "  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable."  If  instinc- 
tively one  have  the  belief  in  his  heart,  he  would  better  never 


52        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

read  the  "  proofs,"  and  if  he  has  not  the  belief,  these  proofs 
can  certainly  not  supply  it.  No  atheist  was  ever  converted 
by  them,  and  doubtless  many  atheists  have  been  made  by 
them.  I  remember  how  shocked  I  was  to  find  that  there 
was  no  proof  of  what  I  already  believed,  and  the  discovery 
was  the  initial  step  of  examination  that  for  many  bitter 
years  led  me  a  sad  dance  through  atheism  and  pessimism. 
It  finally  occurred  to  me  that  fact  needed  no  proof.  Some 
funny  old  metaphysicians,  indeed,  have  reasoned  as  to  the 
fact  of  an  apple,  parcelling  out  the  "  data  of  experience  " 
and  the  "  forms  of  thought  "  that  go  to  make  up  a  "  sensa- 
tion," a  "percept"  and  a  "  concept,"  until  the  fruit  has 
faded  into  "  nowhereness,"  and  one  feels  like  a  child  with 
watering  mouth,  cheated  out  of  its  apple  by  some  tricksy 
nonsense  of  a  sleight-o'-hand  man.  It  is  precisely  the  same 
way  with  "  reality."  Metaphysical  hair-splitting  will  not 
give  it  to  us,  and  will  seemingly  rob  us  of  what  we  had. 
Facts  need  no  proving.  If  God  is  a  fact  He  will  doubt- 
less become  evident  without  much  help  of  proofs.  This 
makes  me  doubtful  about  the  possible  usefulness  of 
additional  arguments,  and  yet  I  feel  that  to  certain 
minds  in  a  peculiar  phase  of  development  the  follow- 
ing thought  may  be  of  use,  as  it  has  been  of  use  to 
me.  It  might  be  called  the  Booby's  Proof.  When 
one  is  bound  hand  and  foot,  incapable  even  of  winking, 
by  the  awful  bonds  of  "  immutable  law,"  with  which  the 
stern  atheistical  master  of  our  modern  mechanic  world 
has  harnessed  all  phenomena,  actual,  past,  or  possible,  one 
becomes  thankful  even  for  a  little  glimpse  of  a  free  world 
between  the  rifts  of  bandaged  eyes.  The  physicists  and 
the  mechanic  philosophers  have  shut  God  into  such  an 
iron  mask  that  we  must  borrow  their  own  key  to  get  a 
little  glimpse  of  Him. 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  53 

A  pile  of  cannon-balls  will  for  all  eternity  remain  as  it 
stands,  so  long  as  the  foundation  on  which  it  rests  is  not 
disturbed,  so  long  as  the  balls  are  not  moved  by  any  ex- 
ternal mechanical  force,  or  so  long  as  they  do  not  rust 
or  are  not  melted  by  heat.  As  to  the  heating  and  the 
chemical  action,  the  mystery  of  their  forces  is  fortunately 
cleared  up  by  the  knowledge  that  radiation  and  the  com- 
pounding of  elements,  or  the  dissolution  of  compounds, 
are  all  due  to  purely  mechanical  forces.  Just  so  literally 
as  the  blow  of  the  suddenly-made  gas  in  the  cannon 
knocks  the  ball  forward,  just  so  exactly  does  the  blow  of 
a  striking  fellow-atom  or  of  an  ether-wave,  hit  the  individ- 
ual atoms  of  the  cannon-ball  and  produce  the  phenomena 
we  call  heat  and  chemical  action.  Therefore,  in  the  water, 
in  the  heap  of  stones,  or  in  cannon-balls,  no  other  forces 
than  those  named  mechanical  are  required  to  account  for 
all  molecular  changes.  But  a  bird  alights  on  the  topmost 
cannon-ball  with  some  hairs  and  dry  grass-leaves  in  its 
mouth.  Here  is  a  new  phenomenon  ;  it  was  neither 
knocked  there,  nor  was  it  put  there  by  any  mechanical 
force,  but  itself  utilized  all  mechanical  forces  in  getting 
there :  it  had  indeed  directional  power  over  mechanic 
forces  of  all  kinds.  In  the  simplest  form  of  the  argument, 
it  had  spontaneous  motion;-  and  the  wisp  of  building 
material  in  its  mouth  pointed  to  purposive  action,  to  a 
thousand  indirect  means  towards  the  bringing  into  exist- 
ence of  other  beings  like  itself,  with  relations  and  effects 
beyond  computation.  In  a  word,  then,  the  existence  of 
spontaneous  motion,  coupled  as  it  always  is  with  direc- 
tional power  over  mechanical  forces,  and  with  purposive 
activity,  is  a  fact  that  cannot  by  any  sane  reason  be 
identified  with  mechanics,  or  named  mechanical.  It 
is  absolutely  unthinkable  that  mechanic  forces  could 


54          THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

have  produced  it.  It  is  a  separate,  distinct,  sui  generis 
order  of  fact,  and  however  limited  one  may  please  to  think 
its  scope  or  significance,  it  fairly,  squarely,  and  indispu- 
tably introduces  into  the  universe  and  into  the  mind  of 
the  young  philosopher,  the  facts  of  freedom,  of  intelli- 
gence, of  design,  and  of  the  utilization  of,  not  government 
by,  mechanic  forces.  Now  a  universe  in  which  there  exists 
the  least  degree  of  these  elements  is  not  mechanical,  is  not 
"  bound  by  the  rigid  and  unexceptional  reign  of  law,"- 
and  all  that.  The  simplest  bit  of  alga,  diatom,  or  of  self- 
mobile  protoplasm,  proves  God's  existence.  The  shackles 
and  bonds  of  determinism,  that  a  crude  science  had  woven 
about  every  muscle  and  thought,  drop  off  as  if  by  magic, 
and  the  mind  looks  about  at  a  world  limitedly  free  and 
of  intelligent  interest. 

It  may  be  said  that  if  the  argument  is  valid,  it  gives  us 
but  a  poor  God;  I  answer:  I,  that  if  you  don't  see  and 
perceive  God,  no  reasoning  or  proof  will  enable  you  to  do 
so ;  2,  that  if  you  do  not  wish  a  God,  no  argument  will 
give  you  one ;  3,  that  the  argument  is  more  valid,  and  to 
a  normal  fair  mind,  far  more  convincing,  than  any  I  have 
heard  of ;  4,  that  a  poor  God  is  far  better  than  no  God. 
I  emphatically  contend,  however,  that  this  God  is  by  no 
means  a  poor  one.  In  the  first  place  He  is  a  living,  a  real, 
and  a  present  God,  and  this  cannot  be  said  of  the  Gods 
of  the  old  arguments,  and  of  the  old  religions ;  and  in  the 
second  place,  study  of  the  actual  work  of  this  Divinity, 
following  up  the  necessary  implications  of  the  argument, 
lead  to  the  evidence  of  His  present  and  visible  richness, 
and  to  glimpses  of  coming  greater  fulness.  The  bird  and 
every  living  thing  show  mental  use  of  physical  atoms 
and  forces;  the  bird's  nest  and  the  reproductive  function 
of  every  living  thing  show  mentality  behind  minds,  using 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  55 

individual  organisms  for  ulterior  purposes, — absolutely 
contradicting  or  overriding  the  "  law  "  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  the  "  law "  of  self-preservation,  or  whatever 
other  "  law  "  man's  prejudice  may  have  devised  to  hide 
from  his  perception  the  fact  of  intelligent,  purposive, 
extra-organismal  control.  Lastly,  the  creative  instinct 
in  man  as  shown  by  musical  and  other  arts,  the  designed 
production  of  new  fruits  and  animals,  or  the  improvement 
of  already-existing  ones  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be  of  mar- 
vellous service — such  things  point  to  the  living  Divinity 
working  to  ends  the  incomparable  richness  of  which  are 
but  hinted  at  in  the  splendid  attainment  of  present  sci- 
ence and  art. 

Another  argument  to  me  of  an  equal  collusiveness, 
either  unknown  or  unemployed  by  those  who  instruct  the 
Godless  how  to  find  Him  by  the  road  of  ratiocination,  is 
the  following:  In  all  purely  physical  phenomena,  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  goes  on  producing  a  series 
of  understandable  sequences,  all  united  in  clear  order,  all 
depending  on  one  another,  and  all  explained  by  mechanic 
principles.  However  often  reflected  from  a  thousand 
successive  objects,  however  transformed  into  other  types 
of  force,  a  beam  of  light  produces  or  itself  becomes  effects, 
that  are  of  a  common  kind  and  comprehensible.  But  let 
it  strike  an  eye  and  it  finally  results  in  a  "  reaction  "  not 
comprehensible,  and  not  to  be  classified  in  any  mechanical 
or  physical  category  of  existence.  All  physical  things 
and  forces  are  "  objective,"  lie  outside  of  a  metaphysical 
subject  that  is  affected  by  them  through  the  medium  of 
sensation.  All  sensation  begins  in  an  understandable 
physical  force,  and  ends  in  a  non-understandable  con- 
sciousness. The  physical  stimulus  is  passive,  unimportant 
comparatively ;  but  the  sensitive-plate  of  mind  is  active 


56        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

and  all-important.  However  the  mechanism  of  con- 
nection between  the  perceiving  consciousness  and  the 
perceived  thing  may  be  explained  or  construed,  the  fact 
is  indisputable  that  behind  the  "  object  "  (in  which  is 
comprised  the  ultimate  physical  end-organs  of  the  brain, 
the  last  intermediating  agents)  there  is  a  reflection  or 
prolongation  of  the  material  force  over  into  an  order 
of  existence  that  by  no  one  can  be  called  physical  or 
material.  Out  from  this  extra-physical  realm  there 
return  intelligent  and  purposive  responses.  The  hyper- 
physical  therefore  is  a  fact,  and  this  hyperphysical  is 
mental,  volitional,  purposive.  The  essential  identity  of 
all  living  natural  things,  and  the  multiform  interdepen- 
dence and  relation  of  all  these  hyperphysical  existences, 
point  by  the  most  incontrovertible  logic  to  an  organismal 
unity  of  source  and  being.  Of  course  no  Infinite  or  Om- 
nipotent is  gained  by  this  road,  but  none  such  is  desirable. 
We  reach,  however,  a  working  and  actual  God,  of  very 
satisfying  proportions  and  powers,  and  we  are  forever 
relieved  of  "  rigid  law,"  materialism,  determinism,  and 
all  that. 

Another  form  of  this  argument  would  be  this:  Classing 
the  ether,  the  lightest  of  known  substances,  with  the  phy- 
sical, the  physical  world  consists  in  one  single  phenom- 
enon, vibrating  or  revolving  atoms,  particles  moved  by 
each  other  according  to  pure  mechanic  laws  or  methods. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  "  spontaneous"  motions  of  matter 
except  gravitational  phenomena.  All  mechanical  or 
non-biological  phenomena  are  explainable  in  terms  of 
gravity,  which  is  absolutely  a  non-mental  force.  Study 
and  observe  for  a  million  years,  and  nothing  else 
exists  "  out  there,"  but  waves  or  undulatory  movements 
in  predictable  regularity.  Include  the  physical  parts  of 


PARTIAL    TRUTHS.  57 

spontaneously  moved  bodies,  and  from  the  ether-waves 
of  light,  the  air-waves  of  sound,  and  the  molecular  or 
atomic  waves  of  heat,  taste,  and  smell,  along  the  white 
conducting  threads  to  and  including  nerve  and  ultimate 
cerebral  centres, — nothing  is  discoverable  but  waves  or 
vibratory  motions,  impelled  by  understood  and  unexcep- 
tional mechanic  forces.  Without  importing  among  these 
waves  mentality,  without  an  illogic  reading  into  them  of 
extra-physical  fact,  no  mentality  or  extra-physical  fact  is 
discoverable.  But,  mark  well  that  volition,  mentality, 
subject,  are  parts  more  indubitably  existing  than  physics, 
mechanics,  and  object.  To  deny  these  psychic  facts  is 
first  and  ipso  facto  to  deny  the  physical  facts,  because  the 
knowing  of  the  latter  and  the  asserting  their  existence,  is 
possible  only  by  means  of  and  in  terms  of  the  extra- 
physical. 


CHAPTER  III. 
INCARNATION. 

IT  is  customary  for  "  the  enlightened  "  to  sneer  at  the 
"  old-fashioned  "  religious  doctrines,  and  people  whose 
function  in  life  is  to  sneer,  so  long  as  they  will  not  take 
themselves,  may  as  well  take  these  doctrines  as  objects 
for  their  scoffs  as  anything  else.  'But  any  great  belief  of 
the  human  mind  must  be  founded  upon  some  great  truth. 
However  much  it  be  modifiable  by  another  truth,  it  is 
never  an  absolute  untruth.  Primitive  and  wide-spread 
beliefs  constitute  their  holders  the  first  philosophers.  The 
function  of  perception  and  judgment  in  the  most 
savage  is  not  so  wretched  as  to  cause  great  bodies  of 
people  through  centuries  to  believe  the  unbelievable.  In- 
deed, untrained  thinking  and  belief  is  usually  truer  than 
the  half-trained  variety,  a  little  knowledge  being  prover- 
bially a  dangerous  thing.  A  little  enlightenment  of  the 
sort  so  fashionable,  makes  easy  the  sneer  against  the 
popular  religious  dogma  of  special  incarnation,  but  no 
incarnation  at  all  is  still  more  untrue,  and  neither  believer 
nor  scoffer  is  apt  to  catch  the  great  truth  that  the  living 
world,  both  vegetable  and  animal,  is  in  its  vast  entirety  a 
literal  and  glorious  incarnation.  There  is  no  perfect  re- 
ligion, nor  is  there  perfect  philosophic  perception  in 
whomsoever  does  not  zealously  believe  this.  It  is  the 
chief  and  keystone  article  of  the  creed  of  the  coming 
religion.  This  article  in  no  way  denies,  indeed,  it  implies 

58 


INCARNA  TTON.  59 

that  there  are  many  degrees  of  incarnation,  but  it  leaves 
no  tiniest  living  cell  or  humblest  living  organism  without 
divine  paternity  and  guidance. 

The  fact  is  of  course  one  to  be  perceived,  and  no  amount 
of  reasoning,  again,  will  give  one  such  perception ;  but  in 
spiritual  as  well  as  in  physical  failure  of  vision,  artificial 
aids  may  be  of  great  service.  To  psychic  myope  or  astig- 
matic, then,  one  may  say,  "  You  see  nothing  but  the  evi- 
dence of  adamantine  law  and  blind  impersonal  forces"  in 
the  whole  biologic  world  ?  How  is  it  that  I  see  not  a 
whit  of  evidence  of  either,  since  to  me  it  is  freedom  and 
personality  that  chiefly  characterize  every  cell  and  organ- 
ism of  that  world  ? 

We  should  first  note  that  there  is  spontaneous  motion 
in  these  beings.  All  purely  physical  things  are  moved 
only  from  without,  but  every  law  or  force  of  physics  is 
used  and  dominated  by  extra-physical  volition.  The  bird 
dropped  in  air  does  not  fall.  There  is  everywhere  control 
of  the  dead  material  of  the  inorganic  world.  Besides  this 
the  control  is  mental  or  purposive.  No  mechanical  force 
compels  the  flower  to  bloom,  the  spider  to  weave  its  net, 
the  bee  to  store  honey,  or  the  man  to  build  ships.  Such 
things  are  done  in  obedience  to  foresight,  fear  of  hunger, 
etc.,  hyperphysical  capacities  and  qualities,  surely.  More- 
over not  even  "  the  preservation  of  self,"  not  any 
egotism  of  the  lowest  or  highest  order  accounts  for  the 
actions  of  these  organisms,  because  an  ill-nourished  tree 
will  kill  itself  in  the  supreme  spasm  of  producing  its  seed, 
and  "nature"  will  suck  the  phosphates  out  of  the  bones 
of  the  poorly-fed  mother  for  the  sake  of  the  unborn  child, 
and  if  she  survive,  the  same  mother  later  will  knowingly 
rush  to  death  to  save  her  drowning  child's  life.  So  there 
is  control  of  the  organism  by  an  intelligence  above  all  or- 


60         THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

ganisms.  They  are  never  reduced  to  an  automatonism 
or  to  a  ceaseless  slavishness  of  obedience :  the  extra- 
organismal  command  is  always  there. 

The  instant  thought  of  the  balking  mind  is  easily  met : 
"Why,"  it  persists,  "Why  is  it  necessary  to  identify  the 
life-principle  of  organisms  and  God  ?  Surely  the  highest 
wisdom  and  power  displayed  in  all  biological  history  and 
science  is  far  short  of  what  we  seek  in  a  Supreme  Being." 
I  answer  first,  that  the  Supreme  Being  is  a  credal  myth, 
a  speculative  fancy,  and  a  useless  luxury,  both  of  religious 
and  of  philosophic  thought,  with  which  as  sensible  men 
living  in  time  and  space,  and  governed  by  fact,  we  have 
nothing  to  do.  It  was  a  natural  hyperbole  of  adoring 
hearts,  in  large  measure  true,  but  in  full  literalness  not 
true.  The  real  divinity  of  Whom  we  thus  get  knowledge 
is  quite  "  Supreme"  enough,  finite  and  unomnipotent  as 
He  is,  to  almost  take  Him  out  of  the  reach  of  our  love 
and  comprehension,  without  adding  unauthorized  attri- 
butes, to  carry  Him  farther  away  from  our  dazzled  power 
of  vision.  Then,  secondly,  the  identity  is  proved,  by  the 
unanswerable  logic  of  the  maxim,  qui  facit  per  aliam  facit 
per  se.  The  intermediation  of  subordinate  gods,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  gnostics,  avails  nothing,  but  only  compli- 
cates the  difficulty.  What  God  does  through  His  agents 
He  is  responsible  for.  Indeed,  the  largeness  of  God  is 
really  lessened  thereby.  The  theory  makes  Him  more 
instead  of  less  finite,  in  being  Himself  incapable  of  the 
details  of  the  great  work,  and  in  being  necessitated  to  carry 
it  on  by  subordinates  and  vicegerents.  I  prefer  rationally 
to  see,  and  religiously  to  love,  the  one  great  God,  than  any 
under-officer.  Any  supposition  except  that  of  His  direct 
and  immediate  infilling,  lands  us  at  once  in  a  tangle  of 
absurd  contention,  contradictory  theory,  and  polytheistic 


INC  A  RNA  TION.  6 1 

mystery,  which  lead  inevitably  to  the  death  of  clear  think- 
ing and  of  living  religion.  There  is  no  abiding  satisfaction 
of  intellectual  honor  or  heart-hunger  except  in  the  un- 
equivocating,  unexceptional  statement  that  every  living 
organism  of  the  world  is  what  it  is  by  the  literal  and  con- 
stant incarnation  of  God  Himself  in  this  form  and  manner. 
He  Himself  is  there,  in  person  and  power,  its  life  is  His 
life,  its  doing  is  His  doing.  u  Pantheism?" — yes,  if  you 
leave  out  all  but  an  infinitely  small  fraction  of  nav  as  the 
part  with  which  alone  OeoS  has  to  do.  "The  creature  be- 
comes automaton  and  freedom  is  lost?"  O  no! 

The  indestructible  basis  of  this  very  modified  Pantheism, 
its  mechanics,  if  one  may  so  speak,  is  as  demonstrable  as 
any  Euclidean  theorem,  and  consists  in  the  necessity  of 
an  extra-physical  force  for  the  production  of  the  cell, — 
the  physiological  element  or  unit.  The  building  and 
nutrition  of  a  cell  from  its  inception  to  its  death  is  inex- 
plainable  by  the  action  of  mechanical  forces  alone.* 

*  The  chemical  operations  performed  by  the  living  cell  cannot  be  imitated 
in  the  laboratory  or  explained  by  any  known  chemical  laws. — Halliburton, 
Handbook  of  Chemical  Physiology  and  Pathology,  p.  210. 

Since  this  chapter  was  written  the  following  words  from  a  medical 
work  of  the  highest  practical  and  scientific  character  have  been  accidentally 
found.  They  are  so  apposite  that  I  give  them  in  full,  italicizing  certain 
sentences  that  seem  to  me  especially  suggestive. 

"  It  was  an  epoch-making  advance  when  the  old  vital  forces  were- de- 
throned and  only  physical  manifestations  were  allowed  to  explain  the 
operations  of  the  organism.  The  physical  methods  of  research  were  adopted 
and  the  vital  processes  were  placed  on  a  corresponding  basis.  This  was  the 
first  step  which  absolved  physiology  from  its  long  bondage  as  a  subordinate 
part  of  anatomy  and  elevated  it  to  an  independent  science.  But  the  fond 
hopes  which  were  placed  on  purely  physical  explanations  even  up  to  a  few 
decades  ago  have  since  been  proved  to  be  unattainable,  and  the  inevitable 
reaction  has  set  in  after  we  have  in  vain  waited  for  the  solution  of  all  prob- 
lems by  physical  science.  Even  some  of  the  most  enthusiastic  investigators, 
who  had  placed  implicit  fate  in  these  explanations,  now  ceased  to  blindly 


62          THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

Without  the  instant  support  of  Biologos  a  cell  falls  to 
death  as  certainly  as  a  dropped  stone  to  the  ground.  The 
dead  atom  falls  apart,  or  rather  it  comes  under  the  unhin- 
dered propulsion  of  mechanical  forces  alone,  and  that 

follow  this  alluring  path.  Not  that  there  was  a  reaction  to  the  old  vital 
forces  ;  not  that  every  attempt  at  an  explanation  was  rejected  in  despair  ;  but 
experimenters  became  convinced  that  in  many,  in  fact  in  nearly  all  the  better 
known  phenomena  the  physical  laws  did  not  suffice  to  give  a  clear  explanation 
of  the  mysterious  vital  phenomena.  Unfortunately,  we  are  now  nearly 
everywhere  compelled  to  assume  a  specific  yet  absohitely  unknown  activity 
of  the  living  cell.  This  reaction  was  very  beneficial  ;  it  unmasked  an  ap- 
parent knowledge  and  brought  us  nearer  to  a  true  understanding  of  nature  ; 
and,  even  if  we  must  finally  admit  a  mechanical  basis,  yet  we  are  still  infi- 
nitely remote  from  the  goal  of  all  natural  science.  That  we  can  only  reach 
this  goal  by  extending  our  knowledge  of  the  vital  phenomena  in  the  indi- 
vidual cells  is  the  advance  which  has  resulted  from  the  reaction  against 
purely  physical  speculations.  The  same  conceptions  which  elevated  physi- 
ology to  an  independent  science  would  merely  have  converted  it  into  physics 
and  chemistry  as  applied  to  vital  phenomena.  Now,  however,  its  character 
as  an  independent  science  is  forever  preserved. 

"The  functions  of  the  stomach  consist  mainly  of  secretion,  absorption,  and 
motion.  It  was  once  thought  that  the  activity  of  the  glands  could  be  ex- 
plained by  the  purely  mechanical  processes  of  filtration  and  diffusion.  The 
chemical  and  physical  changes  in  the  blood  circulating  about  the  glands,  of 
which  the  physical  were  regulated  by  the  nerves,  seemed  sufficient  to  explain 
why  the  secretion  of  one  and  the  same  gland  may  vary  in  strength  and  com- 
position. 

"Although  Johannes  Miiller  had  long  ago  called  attention  to  the  specific 
activity  of  the  glandular  cells,  yet  only  recently  was  it  positively  demonstrated 
that  the  mechanical  processes  of  filtration  and  diffusion  do  not  suffice  to 
explain  secretion^  and  that  we  must  accept  the  existence  of  a  peculiar  activity 
of  the  cells.  [Foot-note.  Ewald,  Klinik,  etc.,  I.  Theil,  3.  Auflage,  S. 
61  und  208  et  seq.~\  Nerves  may  regulate  this  cellular  activity,  yet  secretion 
is  unquestionably  possible  without  them,  and  in  this  respect  the  animal 
tissues  do  not  differ  from  the  vegetable,  which  have  glands  but  no  nerves. 

"  In  the  process  of  absorption  the  specific  activity  of  the  individual  cells 
becomes  even  more  obvious.  Here,  contrary  to  physical  laws,  some  sub- 
stances are  taken  up,  while  others  are  rejected.  The  lymph-cells  have  been 
observed  to  wander  to  the  surface  of  the  intestinal  mucous  membrane,  and 


INCARNA  TION.  63 

organism  is  no  more.  Couple  with  this  the  fact  that  the 
humblest  living  cell  always  shows  mentality,  and  the  phys- 
iological evidence  is  clear  that  divinity  is  more  intimately 
and  more  vitally  present  than  any  deductive  faith  could 

there  incorporate  drops  of  fat ;  they  then  creep  back,  even  into  the  lacteals, 
where  they  give  up  these  particles  of  fat.  In  the  face  of  such  occurrences, 
which  seem  to  play  an  important  part  in  absorption,  how  can  we  think  of 
purely  mechanical  explanations  ?  At  all  events,  in  the  processes  of  absorption 
peculiar  functions  of  the  living  cells  must  coexist  with  filtration  and  diffusion. 

"  The  conditions  are  no  more  favorable  in  the  motor  function.  I  disre 
gard  entirely  the  fact  that  what  occurs  in  a  muscle  during  contraction  is  as  in- 
comprehensible as  what  constitutes  innervation  in  a  nerve.  But  the  depend- 
ence of  the  contraction  upon  the  nervous  impulse,  and  the  invariable  result 
of  this  impulse,  namely,  a  shortening  of  the  muscle,  were  formerly  regarded 
as  a  general  and,  in  a  certain  sense,  physical  law.  Indeed,  for  striped  mus- 
cle it  would  be  difficult  to  find  an  exception  to  this  law,  if  we  do  not  include 
the  direct  stimulation  of  the  muscle  which  can  only  occur  in  an  abnormal 
way.  The  striped  muscle-fibre  is  always  at  rest  till  an  impulse  reaches  it 
through  its  nerve  ;  the  result  of  this  impulse  is  always  a  contraction,  be  it  a 
jerk  or  tetanus.  The  apparent  exception  that  the  heart  continues  to  beat 
even  after  all  its  nerves  have  been  divided,  was  explained  by  assuming  that 
the  impulses  may  arrive  in  the  heart  itself  in  the  ganglion-cells  and  that 
these  impulses  are  transmitted  to  the  cardiac-muscle  fibres  through  the  in- 
tracardiac  nerves.  It  was,  however,  discovered  that  sections  of  the  heart 
•which  positively  contained  no  ganglion-cells  continued  to  beat  rhythmically. 
The  greatest  difficulty  of  maintaining  the  law  of  the  dependence  of  muscular 
contraction  upon  nervous  impulses  is  encountered  in  the  unstriated  muscles. 
Here  we  not  alone  observe  movements  which  are  independent  of  any  nervous 
influence,  as  for  example  in  the  ureter,  but  we  are  not  even  able  in  every 
instance  to  prove  that  the  result  of  the  nervous  impulse  is  a  contraction  of 
the  muscle.  Thus  irritation  of  the  vaso-dilator  nerves  causes  the  arterioles 
to  relax,  and  as,  for  many  reasons,  we  cannot  explain  this  by  the  longitudinal 
fibres  we  are  compelled  to  assume  the  paradox  that  the  circular  fibres  length- 
en upon  irritation.  We  must  therefore  admit  that,  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  the  striated  mucles,  the  above  law  does  not  always  operate,  and  that 
consequently  the  muscles  may  both  make  spontaneous  movements^  and  may 
also  lengthen  upon  stimulation. 

"  These  preliminary  remarks  will  enable  us  to  comprehend  more  readily 
the  unpleasant  fact  that  we  know  very  little  about  the  secretion,  absorption, 


64         THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

have  conceived.  With  this  conception  of  incarnation,  of 
the  immanent  in-living,  up-bearing,  through-thrilling 
Father  of  Life,  struggling  under  difficulties  with  rebellious 
and  dead  material,  comes  the  perfect  solution  of  most  of 
the  ^mysteries  that  have  always  and  so  sorely  grieved  the 
heart  of  man,  that  have  made  the  course  of  history  so 
puzzling,  the  records  of  biological  history  so  gloomy,  and 
our  way  in  time  so  aimless  and  hopeless.  The  reason  of 
"evolution,"  or  progressive  process,  becomes  clear;  the 
question  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  evil,  that  like  a  terrible 
Sphinx  stood  in  every  path,  devouring  whoever  could  not 
solve  her  insolvable  riddle,  is  now  smilingly  answered  by  the 
Sphinx  herself.  Duty  is  no  longer  a  blind,  stern  force  push- 
ing us  nowhither  through  darkened,  roadless  woods,  but  a 
loving  pleasure-walk  to  distant  hill-top  outlook,  with  peace 
in  one's  heart  and  happiness  ever  at  one's  side ;  the  shudder 
and  the  gloom  of  death  itself  are  forgotten,  and  a  rational 
immortality  takes  the  place  of  the  sensual  or  ennui-filled 
heaven  of  the  objectless  after-life  of  childish  faiths. 

and  motility  of  the  stomach.  The  experiments  are  very  frequently  contra- 
dictory ;  many  contain  conditions  which,  upon  closer  examination,  preclude 
a  uniform  result.  It  is  evident  that  the  study  of  the  organ  has  been  under- 
taken with  too  many  physical  propositions \  whereas  here,  as  in  the  digestive 
tract,  biological  laws  are  more  important.  It  seems  that  the  more  highly 
vegetative  the  functions  of  an  organ  are,  the  more  does  its  activity  depend 
upon  its  own  cells,  and  the  less  upon  the  nervous  system.  In  fact,  could 
we  remove  every  nervous  element,  nerve-fibres  as  well  as  ganglia,  from  the 
walls  of  the  stomach  without  injuring  other  tissues,  it  would  secrete,  absorb, 
and  contract  quite  well.  One  may  ask,  why,  then,  all  these  nerve  fibres 
which  enter  the  stomach?  For  the  same  reasons  that  nerves  go  to  the  auto- 
matic heart — to  connect  it  with  the  rest  of  the  body.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
stomach  has  these  connections  with  the  central  nervous  system  to  fulfill  the 
demands  of  the  other  parts  of  the  body  ;  and,  on  the  other,  to  enable  the 
entire  organism  to  take  cognizance  of  its  condition." — Diseases  of  the 
Stomach,  Ewald,  p.  363. 


INCARNA  TION.  65 

THE  MECHANICS  OF  INCARNATION  are  at  present  locked 
up  in  the  mystery  of  the  living  cell,  or  more  accurately 
of  the  living  somacule  of  bioplasm.  The  secret  of  the 
method  of  God's  entrance  into  and  use  of  matter  lies  here. 
In  inorganic  chemical  compounds  there  is  the  basis  or 
hint  of  the  system-formation  upon  which  Biologos  builds 
the  living  molecule  and  cell.  The  solution  of  the  mystery 
of  mechanism  of  the  living  cell  is  partially  dependent 
upon  the  solution  of  the  mystery  of  inorganic  chemical 
union.  Both  are  at  present  somewhat  hidden  from  us, 
though  both  will  doubtless  be  solved  by  progress  in 
microscopy,  spectrology,  and  thermal  chemistry.  In 
part  we  are  coming  to  understand  the  mechanism  of  the 
inorganic  chemical  compound.  It  is  probably  entirely 
explainable  by  the  simple  law  of  gravity  and  momentum, 
and  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  the  solar  system  is 
explainable.  The  application  of  Newton's  laws  to  the 
inorganic  chemical  molecule  may  explain  all  interactions 
of  its  constituent  atoms,  and  the  qualities  developed  by 
their  union. 

A  system,  i.e.,  a  compound,  is  only  formed  when  the  rate 
of  the  periodic  vibrations  of  its  constituent  atoms  is  such 
that  they  revolve  about,  or  in  relation  to  each  other,  indif- 
ferent to  or  resistent  of  the  weaker  gravitational  influence 
of  neighboring  atoms  with  inharmonic  or  aimless  vibration. 
A  system  is  formed  when  individual  and  aimless  swing  \s 
transformed  into  periodic  revolution,  in  conjunction  with 
another  or  other  atoms.  In  the  mechanical  mixture 
forming  our  air  each  element  has  a  periodic  vibration  (or 
specific  weight)  out  of  mathematical  proportion  to  that 
of  the  other,  and  it  swings  aimless,  under  the  blows  of 
colliding  atoms.  In  the  formation  of  water,  however, 
a  genuine  chemical  union  or  system-grouping  takes  place 


66        THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

under  certain  conditions,  whereby  two  atoms  of  hydro- 
gen and  one  of  oxygen  are  caught  in  harmonic  phase,  and 
mechanical  aimless  vibration  becomes  interacting  revo- 
lution, with  closer  condensation  and  resultant  density  of 
product,  and  with  just  that  largeness  of  free  path  of 
revolution  which  above  32°  F.  results  in  the  condition  of 
a  liquid,  and  at  other  temperatures,  in  that  of  a  gas  or 
of  a  solid. 

Viewed    as    a    unit    the  solar  system   is  a  closed  sys- 
tem, and  it  is  truer  to  say  that  the  sun  and  any  planet 
revolve  about  each  other  rather  than  that  the  planets  re- 
volve about  a  fixed  center.     The  solar  system  typifies  in 
large  the  complex,  inorganic  molecule.     In  fact  "matter," 
though  to  a  lesser  degree,  is  like  the  solar  system  "open." 
The  essential  difference  between  the  solar  and  the  chemical 
molecule  is  that  the  latter  can  be  crowded  upon  by  adja- 
cent atoms  or  systems,  and  thus  changed  in  characteristic  ; 
can  be  relieved  of  external    pressure  by  greater  distance 
of  adjacent  systems,  often  with  consequent  results  ;  or  it 
component  atoms  may  be  struck    by   the    blows   of   in 
coming  ether-waves,  and  thus  swung  out  of  the  systerr 
with  resultant  disruption  of  the  compound.     In  the  sol: 
system  nothing  of  this  kind  takes   place.     There   is   r 
other  solar  system  so  near  as  to  crowd  or  relieve  fro 
pressure — even  Neptune  being  so  far  away  from  the  nearc 
external  neighbor  as  to  be  comparatively  uninfluenced  b 
it — and  there  is  no  interplanetary  fluid  except  the  ether,  tl 
blows  or  waves  of  which  are  so  infinitesimally  small  th 
they  can  only  exert  mechanical  pressure  or  tension  upo 
atoms  as  small  as  themselves,  and  in  vibratory  period  h: 
monically  related  to  them.   Now,  the  supposable  exhibitk 
of  purposiveness,  or  of  mental  control  of  the  solar-syste 
could  only  be  conceived  as  taking  place  through  an  . 


INCARNA  TION.  67 

extra  will  coming  into  it,  with  ability  to  lessen  or  to  increase 
the  distances  from  each  other  of  the  globes,  to  draw  in 
from  without  other  complex  systems  and  exhaust  them 
of  their  force  or  heat,  thus  breaking  up  their  combinations 
of  vibrations  and  stealing  the  vehemence  of  their  swing- 
ing, and  stilling  them  down.  In  physiological  language 
we  call  this  on  its  constructive  side,  anabolism  or  nutrition, 
and  its  reverse  aspect  is  named  katabolism  or  retrograde 
metamorphosis.  If  there  were  a  giant  deity  capable  of  do- 
ing this,  the  solar  system  would  become  what  we  call  living, 
i.  e.,  it  would  show  the  functions  of  a  living  molecule  or 
cell.  The  difference  to  be  noted  consists  in  the  number 
and  complexity  of  the  constituent  elements,  the  solar 
system  being  composed  of  a  limited  number  of  planets, 
some  with  simple  subordinate  systems,  asteroids,  and 
comets,  like  the  inorganic  compound,  whilst  the  living 
molecule  of  protoplasm  is  made  up  of  an  unknown  num- 
ber of  constituents — 1,000  or  2,000 — (the  ignorance  a  re- 
proach to  chemistry),  grouped  together  in  a  bewildering 
complexity  of  intricate  and  involved  sub-systems  with 
marvellous  dependencies  and  inter-relations. 

Now,  although  no  such  evidence  of  ab  extra  influence 
or  of  volitional  utilization  of  the  solar-system  molecule 
exists,  just  such  evidence  and  use  is  shown  by  the  actual 
miracle  of  the  formation  and  the  function  of  the  physi- 
ological molecule,  or  somacule  *  and  upon  the  fact  is 
based  the  existence  of  every  living  organism.  The  entire 
mechanism  of  incarnation  depends  and  hinges  upon  this 
secret.  Biologos  gets  control  of  matter  in  this  single  and 

*  The  molecule  is  the  smallest  quantity  of  a  substance  representative  of 
its  qualities,  capable  of  existing  in  a  free  state  ;  it  is  the  typical  unit  of  the 
compound,  and  should  be  limited  to  inorganic  substances.  The  somacule  is 
the  organic  molecule,  and  the  cell  an  organized  system  of  somacules. 


68        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

only  way,  and  the  entire  drama  of  organic  life  on  the 
globe  is  dependent  upon  this  mechanism  of  molecular 
formation  and  control.  This  is  the  essential  principle 
of  biologic  philosophy.  Firmly  grasped  and  compre- 
hended, it  will  be  seen  that  from  it  radiate  lines  of  light 
like  the  karyokinetic  figures  of  cell-division  from  the 
nucleus  *  into  all  the  darkness  of  religion  and  philosophy. 
Cytology,  the  secret  of  physiological  chemistry,  is  the 
secret  of  the  mechanics  of  incarnation,  but  it  is  also  very 
largely  the  secret  of  the  greatest  problems  of  philosophy, 
of  religion,  of  ethics,  and  even  of  esthetics. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  streng  wissenschaftlichen 
sticklers  will  aver  that  any  such  interference  with  molecu- 
lar physics  contradicts  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
energy.  Kinetics,  they  say,  can  know  no  exception  to 
the  law  that  "  in  a  closed  system  the  sum  of  energy 
is  the  equal  of  the  sum  of  the  specific  heat  units  of 
its  elements."  The  least  directional  energy,  it  is  said, 
brought  to  bear  upon  a  process,  seems  to  imply  the  im- 
portation within  it  of  an  increase  of  energy,  and  of  that 
our  finest  analysts  with  their  finest  bolometers  can  detect 
no  evidence.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say,  "you  can't  get 
more  meat  out  of  the  egg  than  there  is  in  the  shell."  The 
contradiction  is  only  seeming,  and  is  another  of  the  many 
ways  men  take  to  cheat  themselves  with  words,  instead 
of  trusting  to  first-hand  observation  of  facts. 

Assuredly  no  bolometer  will  ever  detect  it ;  nor  will 
any  physical  thermometer  ever  do  so.  The  only  weigh- 

*  "  The  cytasters  and  radiating  lines  in  the  protoplasm  around  the  poles 
of  the  spindle  of  a  dividing  cell  remind  one  forcibly  of  the  effect  produced 
by  placing  a  magnet  in  the  midst  of  some  iron  filings,  the  radiating  position 
of  the  metallic  fragments  around  the  poles  of  the  magnet  indicating  the 
direction  of  the  lines  of  force." 


INCARNATION.  69 

ing  machine  delicate  enough  to  react  to  this  stimulus  is 
the  pondering  instrument  that  lies  behind  human  percep- 
tion. When  the  miscroscope  enables  us  to  see  atoms, 
and  when  ocular  muscles  are  nimble  enough  to  move 
synchronously  with  them — some  several  hundred  millions 
of  millions  of  motions  per  second — then  the  bolometer 
may  be  invented  that  can  measure  the  force  of  God's 
finger  in  the  somacule  and  cell.  In  the  meantime  we 
wait,  reckoning  it  better  to  believe  our  spiritual  eyes  than 
to  trust  to  a  crude  physical  law,  physicists  having  so 
often  proved  themselves  mistaken  in  their  judgment  as  to 
what  is  *'  unexceptional  law."  The  criticism  to  us  says 
only  that  life-force  has  not  yet  been  correlated  with 
physical  forces.  Whatever  form  of  mental  picture  we 
make  of  life-force,  it  must  be  deemed  of  infinitely  greater 
tenuity  and  subtlety  than  etherial  forces,  and  it  is  only 
yesterday  that  science  has  told  us  anything  of  the  ether. 
One  hundred  years  ago  it  was  not  necessary  that  we 
should  understand  spectrum-analysis  to  believe  in  the 
beautiful  sunshine.  To-day  the  science  of  biophysics  is 
not  born,  but  we  can  quite  as  truthfully  believe  in  Life — 
because  Life  we  are,  and  Life  is  the  fact  that,  of  consum- 
mate interest,  is  everywhere  most  real  and  evident.  One 
of  the  severest  tasks  of  philosophic  thought  is  to  hold 
fast  the  truth  already  gained,  while  grasping  and  allow- 
ing validity  to  a  higher  and  contradictory  truth,  contra- 
dictory only  in  temporary  seeming,  because  all  chromatic 
half-truths  are  by  the  achromatic  lens  of  honest  reason 
finally  brought  to  focus  in  a  higher  unity  of  pure  white  light. 
THE  UNITY  OF  ALL  ORGANIC  LIFE  is  rarely  acknowl- 
edged, and  even  by  those  acknowledging  it,  its  remote 
consequences  are  little  appreciated.  Almost  every  day  one 
will  find  writings  that  separate  man  and  "  Nature,"  and, 


70        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

by  a  previous  jumble  of  inorganic  and  living  "  Nature," 
make  man  the  enemy  of  all  Nature,  each  following  different 
and  cross  purposes.  To  confuse  under  the  term  Nature 
two  such  different  orders  of  phenomena  as  the  living 
and  the  non-living,  may  pass  in  Sunday-school  books,  but 
there  is  no  school-boy  now-a-days  that  should  not  under- 
stand that  man  is  part  of  the  great  order  of  biological 
phenomena.  Any  good  text-book  of  botany  will  prove  that 
the  protoplasm  of  the  lowest  vegetable  organism  presents 
all  the  qualities  of  the  protoplasm  of  the  highest  animal 
organism.  It  is  needless  now  to  emphasize  the  admitted 
fact  that  no  hard  and  fast  line  exists  between  the  plant 
and  the  animal,  many  species  being  in  the  neutral  bound- 
ing territory,  and  that  in  some  degree  all  plants  possess 
many  of  the  intelligent  purposive  functions,  whilst  in 
moderate  degree  many  possess  all  of  the  essential  charac- 
teristics of  animal  life.  The  difference  that  exists  in  the 
fact  of  the  power  of  the  plant  to  eliminate  living  cells 
from  mineral  or  inorganic  material  alone,  whilst  the 
animal  is  dependent  upon  the  vegetable  world  for  its 
supply  of  this  prepared  food,  really  argues  against  any 
essential  difference  between  the  two  types:  it  is  simply 
a  differentiation  of  function,  and  argues  for  unity,  since  it 
shows  an  interdependence  and  close  vital  relationship. 
Every  agricultural  or  botanical  chemist  also  knows  that 
the  vegetable  kingdom  is  also  dependent  upon  animal 
functions  and  activities  for  its  stability,  so  that  the  rela- 
tionship is  one  of  mutuality  in  ways  more  subtle  than  the 
striking  example  known  to  all,  of  the  complemental  ser- 
vice of  bee  and  flower. 

The  extremely  complex  protoplasmic  molecule  of  the 
animal  is  built  upon  the  moderately  complex  molecule 
formed  by  the  plant :  this  is  the  striking  and  highly 


INCARNA  TION.  *J\ 

suggestive  arrangement  upon  which  depends  the  existence 
of  animal  and  human  life  on  the  globe.  Except  in  some 
possible  rare  instances  the  animal,  if  it  ever  had  it,  has  now 
lost  the  power  of  constructing  its  unit  of  physiological 
activity,  the  cell,  out  of  crude  inorganic  materials.  This, 
our  utter  dependence  upon  our  humble  "  little  brother," 
furnishes  an  intelligent  explanation  of  one  of  the  greatest 
mysteries :  the  apparently  reckless,  useless,  wasteful 
luxuriance,  the  fighting,  clinging  pertinacity,  and  the 
infinitely  ingenious  device,  whereby  millions  of  forms  of 
plant-life  find  means  to  penetrate  and  live  upon  every 
possible  inch  of  the  world's  surface.  It  might  seem  that 
the  omnipotence  of  an  infinite  spendthrift  were  intoxi- 
catedly  scattering  the  riches  of  eternity  in  heedless  pro- 
fusion in  the  few  hours  and  acres  of  our  little  planet. 
But  if  we  could  look  with  the  large  vision  of  Biologos,  I 
doubt  not  we  should  reckon  it  all  as  the  most  economic 
wisdom. 

Should  we  conceitedly  question  the  foresight  that  for 
millions  of  years  transformed  dead  atoms  into  living  trees 
and  ferns,  and  these  into  reservoirs  of  force,  our  coal- 
measures,  upon  which  our  civilization  is  at  present  de- 
pendent? Always  distrust  the  wisdom  that  deems  itself 
wiser  than  the  wisdom  whence  it  sprang.  Harmful,  use- 
less weeds  and  noxious  plants  and  trees! — I  doubt  if  there 
be  one  such.  The  deeper  the  insight  the  less  the  criticism 
of  God,  and  the  more  the  old-fashioned  faith  comes  back 
that  every  living  thing  "  has  its  use,"  present  or  possible. 
And  when  all  criticism  is  allowed  there  remain  the  in- 
dubitable facts  that  all  animal  life,  that  of  man  most  of  all, 
depends  upon  all  vegetable  life,  and  that,  in  the  thousand- 
fold danger  to  which  any  one  type  or  all  types  are 
always  subject,  from  volcano,  recurrent  glacial  period, 


72        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

submergence  of  islands  or  continents,  vegetable  disease, 
parasites,  or  destroyers  of  exhaustless  variety,  upon  any 
single  order  or  family— nay,  upon  any  single  plant,  that 
by  limitless  pertinacity  and  ingenuity  had  saved  itself  in 
some  wreck  or  lethal  change,  may  depend  the  related  ex- 
istence of  other  forms  of  life,  even  the  human  ;  its  "pluck" 
may  rescue  from  absolute  destruction  the  results  of  the 
combined  effort  of  production  of  past  ages.  In  any  such 
general  death  or  destruction  one  rescued  seed  or  plantlet 
may  be  of  incalculable  service  to  any  or  all  animals, 
besides  giving  Biologos  a  foothold  from  whence  to  re- 
people  a  continent  with  that  type,  or  from  it  to  re-develop 
new  species.  The  adaptability  of  any  one  type  to  change 
and  variability  heightens  its  possible  value,  because  it  is 
always  easier  for  Biologos  to  develop  one  type  into  a  dif- 
ferent, than  to  create  a  new  one  immediately.  There  is 
more  than  a  pathetic  beauty  in  such  instances  as  that  of 
the  little  hairy  wood  spurge  that  before  the  Thames  and 
Seine  were  disunited  by  the  English  Channel  produced 
by  the  drop  of  England  into  the  ocean,  had  crept  along 
the  earth  from  the  warm  South  to  England,  and  there  for 
thousands  of  years  has  sustained  a  precarious  existence 
in  one  or  two  sheltered  nooks  or  by  some  warm  spring, 
while  its  nearest  sisters  frozen  out  of  the  north  have  had 
to  retreat  to  the  Mediterranean  shores  again.  Upon  sev- 
eral American  mountains  there  are  yet  left  glacial  butter- 
flies, stranded  by  receding  ice-tides  some  eighty  thousand 
years  ago,  still  brightening  bleak  solitudes  with  beauteous 
life;  they  may  be  thought  of  as  awaiting  their  cousins 
when  the  returning  glacial  period  may  bring  them  again, 
although  ages  hence  other  catastrophies  we  know  not  of 
may  endow  them  with  a  superlative  and  practical  use  to 
our  descendants. 


INCARNA  TION.  73 

The  vanity  of  man  makes  him  assume  a  competence 
and  a  right  to  judge  and  condemn  the  whole  order  of  things 
of  which  he  is  a  part  and  out  of  which  he  has  sprung. 
"Ah!"  we  always  hear.  "Ah!  If  God  had  but  been 
possessed  of  my  wisdom  and  righteousness.  What  waste, 
what  blundering !  What  egregious  follies  mark  the  evo- 
lution of  life  and  blacken  the  sorry  farce  of  history ! 
Nature  is  a  stern  and  relentless  blind  mother,  and  her 
cruelties  are  as  heartless  as  her  follies  are  stupid."  Much 
such  nonsense  one  is  forced  to  read  and  hear  every  day. 

One  feels  like  asking  these  silly  beings  if  they  were 
produced  outside  of  "  Nature."  Did  some  other  faultless 
"Nature"  beget  them  and  their  high  critical  powers? 
Whence  do  they  draw  the  sources  of  their  being,  and  the 
mental  outfitting  they  so  admirably  use?  At  least  they 
are  guests  of  Nature  now,  however  daintily  exotic  their  sup- 
posed origin.  They  are  living  off  her  bounty, — and  like 
filthy  lunatics  they  abuse  and  vilify  the  kind  host  that  nour- 
ishes them.  We  may  never  safely  lose  sight  of  the  divinely 
suggestive  fact  that  if  we  have  anything  admirable  in  our 
human  nature,  if  reason,  love,  honor,  character,  are  ideals 
or  actualities  of  our  life,  if  benefaction,  order,  freedom,  are 
our  acquirement  or  seeking,  if  science,  poetry,  art,  music, 
are  our  creations  and  delight,  they  are  primarily  the 
handiwork  of  Him  who  made  us.  We  did  not  certainly 
make  ourselves.  These  things  cannot  be  conceived  ex- 
cept as  the  blooming  and  fruitage  of  a  tree  planted  and 
nourished  not  by  men's  hands,  for  they  all  sprang  and 
still  gush  not  from  planned  effort  of  our  conscious  seeking, 
but  from  the  still  deeps  of  being  below  and  behind  our 
personal  consciousness. 

The  destruction  of  the  interdependence  of  one  class  of 
animal  organisms  upon  another  is  a  fact  of  which  we  have 


74        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

as  yet  gained  hardly  a  hint.  Some  writers  have  touched 
upon  it,  and  catch  glimpses  of  the  sad  disturbance  of 
power  such  interference  as  our  brutal  hunting  causes,  in 
destroying  the  very  agents  that  keep  our  living  world 
healthful.  The  otter  takes  the  salmon  blinded  by  fungoid 
disease,  and  birds  of  prey  capture  the  grouse  weakened 
by  disease  that  would  infect  the  whole  family.  The  un- 
avoidable conclusion  of  such  a  careful  student  as  Darwin 
is  that  in  the  struggle  for  existence  the  vigorous,  the 
healthy,  and  the  happy  survive  and  multiply.  Among 
the  most  pernicious  of  man's  actions  in  this  respect  is  the 
wanton  destruction  of  forests.  The  perturbations,  the 
echoing  and  re-echoing  effects  of  desertizing  the  globe,  in 
climatic  and  hygrometric  changes,  in  the  pernicious  up- 
setting of  a  long  and  laborously-established  harmony  of 
vegetable,  animal,  and  human  life,  are  beyond  finite  calcu- 
lation. One  rises  from  the  perusal  of  such  a  book  as 
Marsh's  The  Earth  as  Modified  by  Human  Action,  with  a 
pained  sense  as  of  a  horde  of  Northmen  destroying  or 
putting  to  Atilla-use  a  gallery  of  Greek  marbles.  How  can 
the  Infinitely  Patient  and  Ingenious  Healer  ever  curb  and 
enlighten  man  and  repair  the  damages  of  his  invasion? 
But,  just  when  hopelessness  seems  the  only  fruit  to  gather, 
there  is  growing  a  God-planted  "  seedling  "  :  Forestry  is 
becoming  a  science,  and  humanized,  or  divinized  Science 
is  dextrously  setting  herself  to  discover,  to  save,  and  to 
repair.  There  is  in  our  modern  love  of  the  living  world, 
and  unconsciously  beneath  the  beautiful  zeal  of  science,  an 
unseen  wisdom  working  to  heal  the  hurt,  and  undo  the 
injury  of  the  horrible  years  when  the  animal  was  struggling 
to  a  yet-unreached  civilization,  and  harming  all  about 
him  with  the  insanities  of  a  sated  but  undigested  animal- 
ism, and  a  tasted  but  unattained  humanization.  "  Man 


INCARNA  TION.  75 

opposed  to  nature?"  "Wresting  from  her  her  sullenly 
yielded  secrets  ?  "  "  Fighting  her  invasions  and  enmity  ?  " 
— Ah,  me  !  How  blind  themselves  are  these  philosophers  ! 
The  purer  and  the  clearer  eye  recognizes  that  all  life  is 
interdependent  and  a  unit ;  that  the  greatest  king  is  be- 
holden to  the  meanest  diatom,  and  to  the  humblest  weed 
of  unexplored  regions  ;  that  fungus,  tree,  animal,  and 
unhumanized  savage,  are  all  dumbly  longing  for  the  love 
and  the  guidance  of  their  rational,  seeing  brother,  man. 
Biologos  will  hold  them  with  His  soft  slavery,  He  will  keep 
them,  and  they  will  wait  for  the  Coming  King,  governed 
in  the  meantime  by  His  agents,  the  instincts  and  the 
"  struggles  for  existence,"  the  subtle  balances  of  power, 
the  curbs  of  hypertrophies  and  stimuli  of  hypotrophies, — 
His  only  but  effective  means, — until  He  shall  have  so 
educated  and  deified  man,  until  He  shall  have  so  filled  his 
heart  with  helpful  love,  as  to  operate  through  him  by 
more  effective  and  direct  means  to  perfect  life  upon  the 
globe.  The  great  world  of  living  things  awaits  "  the 
coming  of  the  Lord,"  the  deputy  of  God,  man,  to  give  it 
freedom,  to  bring  it  release  and  guidance,  to  educe  soul 
out  of  sense,  and  to  teach  the  inexhaustible  beauty  of  love. 
Poor  half-savage  and  shipwrecked  folk,  we  have  clutched 
the  island  of  Time  on  which  we  have  been  washed,  and 
seek  to  crush,  and  enslave,  and  devour  the  little  brothers 
stranded  here  before  us,  and  who  in  the  common  misfor- 
tune that  has  overcome  us  all,  would  better  deserve,  and 
more  infinitely  repay,  our  sympathy  and  our  unselfish 
help.  "  Thou  shalt  love  God  with  all  thy  heart,"  acquires 
a  divine  significance  when  we  come  to  recognize  the  real 
"  God,"  and  to  know  all  of  "  our  neighbors."  The  human- 
ization  of  our  friend  the  dog,  the  domestication  and  im- 
provement of  fruits  and  animals,  the  miraculous  response  of 


76       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

all  living  things,  heretofore  loved  and  cultivated  by  man, 
give  hint  of  the  waiting  readiness  of  the  living  world,  and 
of  the  wonderful  results  that  will  follow  when  we  learn  to 
love  and  to  help  all  instead  of  hating,  or  at  best  selfishly 
using  all.  Happy  he  who  shall  be  the  new  Christ,  the  re- 
arisen  and  extended  Christ  of  this  new  religion,  and  shall 
both  point  and  lead  the  way  to  this  coming  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  in  all  the  Earth ! 


CHAPTER  IV. 
CYTOLOGY.* 

CYTOLOGY  IS  THEOLOGY,  because  a  perfect  know- 
ledge of  what  takes  place  in  the  cell,  a  knowledge 
of  what  causes  the  changes,  and  of  the  ultimate 
effects  of  these  changes,  would  let  light  into  the  whole 
"  before  and  after."    I  can  only  give  a  few  of  the  glimpses 
of  the  implications  and  of  the  consequences  that  I  have 
caught,  but  below  the  horizon's  edge  it  is  bright  with  a 
light  I  fain  would  travel  to  see. 

"O  \6yoS  6ap%  eyevs TO  :  The  Word  became  Flesh.  So 
said  religion  most  truly,  and  yet  religion  has  never  shown 
the  faintest  curiosity  as  to  how  the  Logos  made  unto  itself 
a  beauteous  instrument  of  flesh.  And  the  bitter  irony  is 
heightened  by  the  sad  spectacle  of  a  Godless  Science 
blunderingly  seeking  to  discover  the  method,  whilst  at  the 
same  time,  far  from  working  herself,  and  far  from  show- 
ing any  interested  encouragement,  Religion  stands  by  and 
affects  to  scoff  at  the  blind  worker.  Such  are  the  specta- 
cles that  meet  the  philosophic  eye  everywhere.  We  are 
all  working  to  hidden  ends  by  mistaken  motives,  and  the 
light  will  come  when  the  divinely  beneficent  smile  reveals 
the  reward  of  unexpected  success  greater  than  would  have 
been  that  we  delusively  sought.  The  honor  and  the  suc- 
cess will  be  in  proportion  as  our  work  has  been  guided  by 
a  self-effacing  loyalty  to  truth. 

*  KuroS,  cell  ;  XoyoS,  science,  the  science  of  the  cell  and  of  Cell-Life. 

77 


78        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

The  cell  is  God's  nov   GTOD  for  moving  the  world.     Its 
nucleus  is  His  millionfold  point  of  contact  with  matte.. 
Back  from    every   cell-nucleus    run    the   lines   of    unity, 
meeting  in  the  focus  of  His  personal  control.     Language 
fails  us  when  we  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  or  to   others 
this  almost  incomprehensible  fact.     Perhaps  it  would   b_ 
nearer  truth  to  say  that  Spirit,  which  is  outside  the  limit.' 
of  space  and  time,  finds,  or  rather  makes,  the  cell   Hi^ 
universal  throne,  so  that  He  Himself  in  very  literalness  ie 
the  life  of  each  of   the  innumerable  tiny    elements  tha' 
make  up  the  substance  of  plants  and  animals.     In  this  fac 
we  get  the  vivid  demonstration  of  many  things  entire!" 
extra-cellular.     For  instance,  the   infinite   detail   of    Hi 
work.     The  atoms   of   every  cell  could  not  place  ther 
selves  as  they  are  in  the  cell,  they  could  not  build  the  ce 
as  it  any  instant  is,  or  for  a  moment  keep  it  in  function 
Constantly   rebuilding   and    upholding,  an  extra-cellul 
control  of  every  cell  is   evident. 

But  every  cell  differs  from  every  other  cell.  Not  on1 
does  each  cell  of  all  of  the  myriad  classes  of  tissue 
have  a  typical  likeness  to  those  of  its  kind,  and  a 
utter  unlikeness  to  those  of  all  other  kinds,  whethc 
of  liver,  kidney,  parotid,  contractile,  constructive,  < 
osseous,  but  it  is  only  our  finiteness  that  keeps  us  fro 
realizing  that  the  individual  cells  of  each  class  diffc 
from  each  similar  associate.  The  typical  protoplasm- 
molecule  of  each  planet  must  differ  in  general  chemic; 
formula  from  that  of  every  other  planet,  that  of  the  veg 
table  from  that  of  the  animal,  every  class  of  each,  in  Ian 

*  Despite  such  oft-repeated  nonsense  as  this  :   "  The  movements  of  mat 
and  the  phenomena  of  mind,  are  separated  by  a  fathomless  abyss.     Betw 
the  one  and  the  other  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  neither  can  matter 
upon  or  induce  changes  in  mind,  nor  can  mind  act  on  or  induce  changes 
matter." — MERCIER,  Sanity  and  Insanity. 


CYTOLOGY.  79 

ways,  from  that  of  every  other  class,  and  so  on  down  to 
each  individual,  and  to  each  cell  of  every  individual.  In 
men,  we  easily  detect  racial  body-odors,  and  the  dog  can 
instantly  differentiate  the  odor  left  by  his  master's  foot 
from  that  of  every  other  of  the  fifteen  hundred  millions 
of  men  in  the  world.  I  have  alluded  to  proofs  of  God's 
finiteness,  but  here  of  course  the  mind  is  crushed  with 
wonder  at  this  proof  of  His  practical  infinity. 

The  mathematician  can  hardly  estimate,  and  the  mind 
can  in  no  way  conceive  the  multi-millions  of  cells  of  any  one 
organ  of  the  many  that  make  up  our  body,  or  the  grass- 
blade  at  our  feet.  It  is  said  that  about  five  million  blood- 
cells  die  with  every  breath.  The  nimblest  imagination 
shrinks  and  shudders  as  it  peers  out  through  the  stretches 
of  space  and  time  rilled  and  palpitant  with  silent  inex- 
haustible life-power. 

With  all  the  repeated  life-time  labors  of  great  minds  on 
single  subjects  of  study,  on  single  organs  of  any  organ- 
ism, there  is  exhaustless  mystery  beyond.  We  know  the 
ultimate  secrets  of  no  one  organism  or  of  any  one  of  its 
organs.  In  rapt  astonishment  we  can  only  catch  promises 
of  glimpses  and  glimpses  of  promises  of  the  subtle 
devices,  the  delicate  mechanisms,  the  out-worked  intrica- 
cies of  construction  and  adjustment,  the  far-sighted  vision 
and  forefending  dexterity  that  characterize  even  the 
simplest  organism,  and  that  appal  us  when  we  correlate 
each  with  all.  Linked  each  to  other,  intermediate  and 
inexplained  result  merging  itself  into  cause,  kaleidoscopic 
change  bound  to  ever  foreseen  purpose,  purpose  linking 
itself  to  purpose,  losing  and  finding  itself  in  higher  unities, 
—the  mind  is  able  certainly  to  know  that  the  living  Logos 
is  in  all,  but  it  has  certainly  not  seen  the  limits  of  that 
metaphysical  mentality. 


80        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

And  in  this  way  we  could  go  on  envisaging  phase  after 
phase  of  the  many  aspects  that  spring  into  view  as  we 
clearly  realize  the  indirect  inferences  derivable  from  cell- 
incarnation  and  cell-philosophy. 

But  certain  negative  considerations  also  rise,  and  warm 
emotion  is  suddenly  chilled  into  its  isomer,  reason. 
Fate  that  as  servant  may  bow,  but  as  slave  will  never 
bend, — fate  is  plainly  seen  in  the  simple  fact  that  only 
by  the  mechanics  of  the  cell  could  God  compass  his  ends. 
Matter  could  only  be  conquered  by  the  awful  indirection 
of  cellular  physiology.  In  other  words,  molar  or  mechan- 
ical energy  (with  all  correlate  forces  and  distant  ends)  is 
directly  impossible  to  Biologos ;  He  can  only  reach 
mechanical  and  meta-mechanical  results  by  the  massed 
effects  of  billions  of  separate  but  conjointly-working  cell- 
functions.  The  nearest  metaphor,  or  likeness,  is  that 
of  light.  Repetitive  billions  of  ether-waves  are  required 
even  to  beget  the  simplest  sensation  of  light,  but  only 
combined  multiples  of  these  numbers  can  finally  evoke 
the  mite  of  mechanical  force  shown  in  Crookes'  radiome- 
ter, whilst  calculation  of  the  waves  locked  up  in  a  pound 
of  coal  is  quite  beyond  finite  mathematics.  Just  such 
cost  of  indirection  is  asked  by  matter  as  the  price  of 
niggard  consent  to  serve  the  Lord  of  Life.  God  accepted 
the  condition,  and  the  living  world  stands  before  us.  The 
fact  shows  the  most  decided  lack  of  absolute  omnipotence, 
but,  from  the  other  point  of  view,  it  also  shows  the  fulness 
of  relative  omnipotence. 

It  is  this  complete  recognition  of  the  labor,  the  ingen- 
uity, and  the  love,  the  infinite  patience,  and  the  indirection 
with  which  Biologos  has  circumvented  the  poverty  and 
obstinacy  of  matter,  and  turned  defeat  into  victory,  that 
enables  us  to  sympathize  and  love  Him.  Because  His 


CYTOLOGY.  8 1 

work  is  our  work.  Throughout  our  life  we  are  but  doing, 
in  our  way  and  limited  sphere,  exactly  what  He  is  doing. 
We  can,  indeed,  do  nothing  else.  To  maintain  a  perfect 
incarnation,  to  conquer,  control,  and  utilize  matter,  to 
make  spirit  speak  through  physic — this  is  the  work  at 
which  life  is  set,  whether  the  life  be  that  of  God  or  of 
ourselves.  The  sacrifices  He  has  been  compelled  to 
suffer  to  compass  His  object  make  Him  comprehensible 
and  endear  Him  to  us,  and  these  same  sacrifices  consti- 
tute the  mysteries  of  evil,  of  imperfection,  of  disease,  and 
of  death.  Sacrifice  is  always  the  key  to  mystery,  and 
just  as  suffering  brings  clearness  and  modesty  and  chast- 
ening to  man,  revealing  many  human  mysteries,  so  God's 
sacrifices  constitute  the  explanation  of  most  divine  and 
cosmic  mysteries. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  our  ignorance  of  matter  is,  in 
strict  analysis,  far  greater  than  our  ignorance  of  God.  In 
the  ultimate  of  self  we  have  direct  knowledge  or  percep- 
tion of  "the  ultimate  reality  that  is  behind  the  veil  of 
appearance,"  *  whilst  all  our  knowledge  of  matter  is  medi- 
ate, second-hand,  and  as  yet  indefinite.  The  reality  is 
what  we  do  know,  and  the  appearance  is  as  yet  the  un- 
known. 

All  biological  facts  and  truths  center  and  end  in 
questions  of  nutrition  ;  and  all  questions  of  nutrition  are 
solely  questions  of  nutrition  of  the  physiological  unit,  the 
cell.  The  cell,  it  must  be  again  repeated,  is  the  only 
agent  and  tool  that  Biologos  has.  Organogenesis  is  solely 
the  massing  together  of  some  billions  of  independent 
tools,  of  which  He  has  the  use  and  control,  to  educe  there- 
from mechanical  results,  the  mechanical  results  or  organ- 

*  "  We  are  not  permitted  to  know, — nay,  are  not  permitted  even  to  con- 
ceive that  reality  that  is  behind  the  veil  of  appearance." — SPENCER. 
6 


82        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

work  being  merely  the  summarization  of  the  individual 
labors  of  all  the  cells.  The  organ  is  the  mere  unition  of 
the  work  of  all  the  cell-elements.  In  botany  and  in 
zoology,  cellular  physiology  is  the  ultimate  science  to 
which  all  other  physiologies  minister,  and  in  which  they 
end.  Indeed,  physiology  as  ordinarily  taught  and  under- 
stood in  the  schools,  is  only  the  mechanics  of  the  subject, 
only  the  consideration  of  a  few  of  the  crudest  end-results. 
The  child  with  the  most  rudimentary  philosophical  bent 
suspects  this,  but  the  questioning  is  at  once  hushed  by 
the  teacher,  who  by  his  "scientific  training"  prevents 
any  suspicion  of  ultimate  reasons,  final  causes,  root 
questions,  or  teleological  suspicions,  to  arise  in  his  own 
mind  or  in  the  minds  of  his  pupils.  To  the  healthy  in- 
tellect every  question  of  physiology  leads  by  the  most 
natural  and  inevitable  logic  to  teleology  ;  to  the  "  enlight- 
ened scientist "  it  too  often  leads  to  intolerable  blankness 
and  self-stultification.  The  crude  end-results  that  com- 
mon physiological  teaching  is  satisfied  to  consider,  all  lead 
to  cellular  physiology,  and  all  cellular  function  leads  as 
inevitably  to  extra-cellular  life  and  control,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  metaphysical  facts.  The  bones  are  to  give  the 
body  stability  and  uprightness,  to  attach  muscles  to, — 
whereby  motility  is  assured  ;  the  muscles  are  the  agents 
directly  mediating  self-motility  ;  the  visceral  organs  are  to 
elaborate  nutritive  elements  for  the  feeding  of  all  parts ; 
the  vascular  system  is  to  carry  the  food  to  and  from  all 
parts,  the  heart  pumping,  the  lungs  oxygenating;  and, 
lastly,  the  nervous  system  is  to  control  all  parts  and  make 
all  functions  harmonic  and  unitary.  Mutatis  mutandis, 
the  same  "  explanations "  of  the  same  functions  in  the 
plant  organism  are  held  satisfactory. 

Now,    all   this   is    just    as    sensible    as    to    explain    a 


CYTOLOGY.  83 

steamship  without  a  thought  as  to  the  sheets  and 
bolts  of  steel  on  which  all  depends ;  without  a  word  as 
to  the  coal  or  steam  ;  the  intelligence  that  created  and 
guides  the  huge  mechanism ;  or  the  purposes  for  which 
it  is  to  move  about  the  ocean-world.  The  cells  and 
bioplastic  units  of  the  living  organism,  the  combined 
individual  life  and  workings  of  which  constitute  the  life- 
mechanism  of  the  whole,  are  not  spoken  of,  neither  the 
force  that  proceeds  from  each  cell-nucleus,  nor  the  men- 
tality displayed  in  the  creation  and  working  of  the  un- 
conscious machine,  or  in  its  conscious  guiding  will.  If, 
finally,  object  and  purpose  of  the  whole  mechanism  is 
inquired  about,  the  poor  little  dazed  philosopher  is  told 
by  the  catechism  of  the  religionists  that  the  object  of  life 
is  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever,  or  by  the  cat- 
echism of  the  scientists  that  agnosticism  is  the  end  of  all 
thinking,  and  "  evolution  "  the  purpose  of  all  existence.  No 
wonder  that  the  stunned  curiosity  silently  concludes  that 
the  theologic  answer  is  wholly  beyond  comprehension 
and  practice,  and  that  the  scientific  answer  is  blank  pes- 
simism. The  resultant  "  line  of  least  resistance  "  is  that 
indicated  by  the  indubitable  pointing  of  the  lowest  senses, 
and  in  this  way  self-preservation  and  self-gratification 
necessarily  (and  rightly,  too)  become  the  pursued  ideals. 
Religion  and  science  have  both  united  in  the  noble  calling 
of  making  atheists  and  sensualists  out  of  their  pupils,  who, 
in  graduating  from  either  school,  fling  their  diplomas  with 
disappointment  and  disgust  into  the  dying  fire  of  youth- 
ful ideals  and  enthusiasms,  and  plunge  out  into  the  whirl 
of  commercialism  and  self-seeking.  The  best  and  shrewd- 
est of  these  pupils  attain  "  comfort  "  and  philistinic 
"respectability";  the  worst  and  the  stupidest  (with  a 
considerable  minority  of  the  unbalanced,  unselfish,  and 


84        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

noble)  drift  into  galling  poverty,  sensuality,  criminality, 
and  multiform  wretchedness.  But  all  alike  are  plebeian, 
coarse,  without  poetry,  religion,  or  ideal — blown  by  the 
winds  of  passion  into  a  future  that  is  dark  and  hopeless, 
without  rudder  of  intellectual  stability  or  compass  of 
guiding  duty.  The  atoning  and  righting  civilization  of 
the  future  will  have  bitter  thanks  for  the  irreligious 
religion  and  for  the  unscientific  science  of  to-day. 

Every  subordinate  organ  or  part  of  an  organism  points 
otherwhere  for  its  explanation.  All  parts  pertaining  to 
form  and  motion  are  to  aid  in  the  satisfaction  of  desires, 
usually  of  hunger  and  regeneration ;  all  digestive  and 
vascular  functions  are  to  supply  food  to  other  parts ;  all 
nervous  structures  and  organs  of  special  senses,  to  help  all 
other  parts, — each  is  slave  to  other,  and  finds  no  end 
in  itself.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  all  organs  whose 
function  is  to  secure  the  nutrition  of  others,  at  the  same 
time  effect  their  own  nutrition  ;  that  all  organs  are  made 
up  of  the  same  elements,  that  is  of  cells  slightly  differen- 
tiated for  their  special  work ;  and  that  every  living  cell, 
vegetable  or  animal,  displays  all  the  essential  functions 
that  are  shown  by  the  organ  or  the  organism,  or  by  any 
other  organism.  More  striking  degrees  appear  by  the 
combined  action  of  many  differentiated  cells,  but  the  care- 
ful eye  finds  them  all  in  the  cell  seeking  expression  and 
power.  Now  this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  great 
Biologos,  the  living  God  Himself,  is  present  in  the  cell  in 
full  mentality,  purpose,  and  personality,  lacking  only  ade- 
quate means  or  power  to  more  fully  reveal  Himself  and 
to  effectualize  His  aims,  and  moreover  plainly  taking  such 
steps  toward  this  effectualization..  The  discerning  eye 
can  meet  divinity  face  to  face  in  the  ameba  and  its  pseu- 
dopods,  or  in  the  white-blood  corpuscle,  and  can  as  genu- 


CYTOLOGY.  85 

inely  and  often  as  justifiably  worship  Him  there  as  in  the 
temple  or  the  cathedral. 

To  again  repeat :  the  chief  and  absorbing  function  of 
nearly  all  but  one  set  of  organs  is  that  comprehended 
under  the  term  nutrition.  The  millionfold  devices  of 
plant  and  animal  for  securing  food,  and  for  protection 
against  the  antagonisms  and  enemies  of  life,  animate  and 
inanimate,  against  cold,  and  against  the  "running  down" 
of  the  clock-mechanism, — all  are  but  various  phases  of 
cell-nutrition.  It  is  the  hunger  of  the  cell  that  has  created 
the  corporeal  instruments,  and  the  corporeal  unity  itself, 
the  more  surely  to  bring  about  cellular  feeding.  Of 
course  a  not-forgotten  and  still  deeper  "  final  cause  "  lies 
behind  all  hunger  and  all  nutrition, — but  of  that  just  now 
it  is  not  question.  The  science  of  microscopy  is  only  an 
indirect  assertion  and  proof  of  this  fact. 

But  there  is  one  set  of  organs,  which,  together  with  the 
emotions  that  lie  behind  them,  yield  no  obedience  to 
other  organs,  are  servant  to  no  others,  but  imperiously 
demand  service  of  all.  To  the  savage  mind  these  organs 
were  the  most  indubitable  proofs  of  a  mysterious  outside 
deity,  whose  symbols  were  most  serious  and  whose  wor- 
ship most  sincere,  whilst  to  the  profoundest  philosopher, 
they  now  none  the  less  flash  upon  the  perception,  the 
gleaming  evidence  of  extra-organismal  control  and*  of 
after-coming  revelations.  After  the  biologist's  nutritional 
studies,  hardly  second  in  importance  are  those  of  the 
reproductive  function.  The  two  departments  comprise 
quite  all  of  his  work.  The  primary  significance  of  the 
one  is  a  hyperphysical  Logos-life  gaining  self-expression 
and  control  of  matter  through  the  mechanism  of  the  cell ; 
the  significance  of  the  other  is  the  perpetuation  and  ex- 
tension of  that  control,  and  of  that  revelation,  in  advance 


86        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  foreseen  failure,  by  the  mechanism  of  reproduction. 
There  is  a  subtle  but  profound  significance, — indeed  all 
the  significance  it  has  is  here, — in  the  decking  with  flowers 
of  young-womanly  beauty  in  blooming  years  or  in  mar- 
riage-days. The  flower  perfumed  with  God,  the  girl  his 
divine  exotic,  each  flooded  with  unearthly  benediction 
and  crowned  with  His  halo  of  beauty,  both  alike  bespeak 
the  wonder  of  His  promise  and  the  reward  of  its  fulfilling, 
when  we  render  loving  obedience  to  His  command.  "  Eye 
hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  him." 

The  truth  that  CYTOLOGY  IS  MEDICINE  is  illustrated  by 
a  number  of  facts,  chief  of  which  of  course,  is  the  firm 
establishment  and  general  scientific  acknowledgment  of 
the  cellular  pathology  of  Virchow.  As  all  physiology  is 
primarily  and  essentially  the  physiology  of  the  cell,  so  all 
pathology  is  necessarily  essentially  the  pathology  of  the 
cell.  All  scientific  physicians  are  conversant  with  Vir- 
chow's  great  work  and  of  the  development  of  the  doctrine, 
and  its  exemplification  by  every  new  medical  discovery, 
It  is  therefore  useless  to  further  emphasize  or  detail  it. 
As  the  body  is  composed  entirely  of  its  cells,  it  is,  in- 
deed, a  mere  axiom,  that  disease  must  be  disease  of  its 
cells.  As  physiological  chemistry  learns  the  facts  of  cel- 
lular nutrition,  it  will  become  more  and  more  clear  how  the 
cell's  vitality  is  lessened  or  interfered  with  by  improper 
nutrition  and  microbic  enemies.  Slowly  the  prevention  of 
disease  is  coming  to  be  recognized  as  the  great  problem  and 
the  established  fact.  Already  knowledge  has  outrun  prac- 
tice, because  if  the  known  truths  of  preventive  medicine 
were  applied,  the  present  death-rate  would  be  reduced  by 
one  half.  The  ultimate  philosophical  lesson  of  physiology 


CYTOLOGY.  87 

and  pathology  is  that  Biologos  is  the  great  Father  of  phy- 
siological chemistry  ;  that  our  little  child-like  glimpses  of 
the  science  is  the  lisping  a  b  c,  of  His  cosmic  science,  begun 
with  the  first  speck  of  bioplasm  that  He  created,  and  to-day 
active  in  every  cell  of  every  living  thing.  He  in  person  is 
present  in  the  cell ;  all  physiology  is  healthy  nutrition  of 
His  cells  and  all  disease  is  their  disturbed  nutrition.  All 
curative  medicine  is  taking  away  enemies,  faulty  or  dis- 
turbing elements,  and  supplying  healthy  ones.  No  bung- 
ling medication  ever  did  aught  in  disease  but  permit  the 
intelligence  and  healing  life  behind  and  in  the  cell  to  cure 
the  cell.  The  removal  of  a  few  obstacles  and  the  supply- 
ing of  a  little  proper  food,  constitute  the  intelligent  phy- 
sician's task.  Biologos  in  His  own  unknown  way  does 
the  work  of  cure  whilst  we  stand  almost  idly  by,  our  little 
wisdom  largely  consisting  in  not  interfering  and  in  not 
complicating  His  struggles. 

To  the  understanding  of  the  world  the  subject  of  tem- 
perature is  of  more  interest  and  importance  than  all  the 
disquisitions  of  speculative  philosophy  from  Plato  to 
Lotze.  But  not  one  great  philosopher  ever  thought  of, 
or  mentioned  the  idea.  It  was  the  chief  element  of  God's 
first  great  labor,  and  it  is  to-day  the  burdensome  problem 
and  exhausting  task  of  an  ingenuity  and  care  wholly 
beyond  comprehension.  At  present  the  balance  of  tem- 
perature established  in  man  is  so  extraordinarily  deli- 
cate and  fine  that  the  functions  of  the  most  complexly 
organized  centers  that  intermediate  the  highest  vital  and 
mental  processes  are  liable  to  fluctuation  and  danger  from 
the  most  subtle  and  unperceived  causes.  This  uniformity 
and  exquisiteness  of  heat-balance  has  been  established  by 
making  the  substance  of  the  highest  functional  cells  of  an 
amazing  complexity  of  structure,  wherein  the  change  of  a 


88        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

degree  or  two  either  chills  the  metabolic  process  below 
the  most  perfect  working,  or  heats  it  toward  dissolution. 
Our  knowledge,  our  thermometers,  and  our  tests  are  at 
present  as  incapable  of  proving  and  putting  this  in  scientific 
language,  as  a  Hottentot  is  capable  of  properly  operating 
and  explaining  a  magnetometer.  We  do  not  even  know  the 
names  of  the  hundreds  of  complex  subordinate  substances, 
each  with  its  own  delicately-adjusted  melting-point  and 
qualities,  each  held  to  other  by  the  slightest  bonds  of  intra- 
molecular vibration,  united  together  in  subtle  couple  of 
intricate  balance  and  affinity, — all  held  in  the  most  un- 
stable equilibrium,  and  utilized  by  the  great  cell-chemist 
for  definite  but  by  us  hardly-guessed  purposes.  We  are 
so  far  from  definite  chemical  knowledge  that  we  cannot 
tell  within  hundreds,  perhaps  within  thousands  of  atoms, 
the  sum-total  of  ultimate  elements  composing  the  typical 
protoplasmic  molecule.  In  a  patient  a  rise  of  temperature 
above  the  normal  shows,  of  course,  increased  cell-activity 
and  increased  danger  of  the  more  violent  atomic  and 
molecular  vibration  disrupting  the  delicate  bonds  that  hold 
the  more  unstable  subordinates  in  subjection.  Cytolysis 
results.  If  the  engine  is  put  to  too  high  a  rate  of  speed 
the  centrifugal  forces  overcome  the  centripetal  and  there 
is  death  from  exhaustion  and  dissolution.  Unless  the  cell- 
mechanism  is  of  exceptional  stability,  fever,  or  abnormal 
heat,  which  are  names  for  increased  vibrational  or  cell- 
activity,  very  soon  gives  evidence  of  an  excess  of  the 
centrifugal  forces  beyond  the  control  of  the  cell  by  its 
master,  and  molecular,  followed  of  course  by  somatic, 
death,  ensues.* 

*  Of  the  total  heat  evolved  in  the  body,  about  7  per  cent,  is  used  in  exter- 
nal mechanical  work  ;  of  the  remainder,  four  fifths  is  radiated  through  the 
skin,  and  the  rest  by  the  lungs  and  excreta. 


CYTOLOGY.  89 

But  it  is  of  exceptional  interest  to  note  that  subnormal 
temperature  is  far  more  rare,  and  far  more  dangerous  than 
fever.  Control  of  the  cell  sufficient  to  liberate  enough 
heat  or  to  permit  of  cell-nutrition  (different  for  every  species 
of  animal),  has  evidently  been  reached  only  by  great  dif- 
ficulty, foresight,  labor,  and  delicacy  of  nutritional  adjust- 
ment. Too  much,  within  certain  limits,  can  be  guarded 
against,  excluded,  or  compensated  for,  but  a  very  little  too 
little,  is  quick  death.  Empiric  therapeutics  knows  that 
dangerous  fever  calls  for  cold,  or  other  lessening  of  cell- 
metabolism.  A  quaint  old  physician  ordered  as  his  epi- 
taph, "  He  fed  fevers."  That  was  one  method,  and  of  use, 
but  many  others  are  required,  and  our  knowledge  of  cell- 
life  must  be  much  increased,  before  Biologos,  when  strug- 
gling with  disease,  is  not  as  much  hindered  as  He  is  helped 
by  our  clumsy  therapeutics.  The  same  lesson  comes  out 
clearly  in  the  fact  that  the  lower  functions  (muscular  or 
glandular,)  may  be  deprived  of  their  blood-supply  for  con- 
siderable periods  without  injury.  Their  cell-compounding 
is  evidently  not  so  complex,  and  so  much  does  not  depend 
upon  it.  But  deprive  the  cerebral  consciousness-centers 
of  their  nourishment  for  the  fractional  part  of  a  second  and 
recuperation  is  impossible.  The  ceaseless  attention  of  the 
engineer,  his  straining  and  sleepless  watchfulness,  the  un- 
interrupted stream  of  God's  life  that  must  be  poured  into 
the  mechanism  of  the  nerve-cells  and  centers,  (for  He  is 
steam  and  engineer  in  one)  is  beyond  the  limits  of  any 
finite  imagination.  Such  is  the  price  He  pays  for  control 
of  material  cell-systems,  such  the  reluctant  consent  to 
serve  on  the  part  of  matter,  built  up  into  enormously 
complex  and  artificial  tiny  solar  systems,  and  ever  silently 
seeking  to  slip  away  from  the  Divine  Master.  Can  it  be 
believed  that  the  intelligence  and  ingenuity  that  could  do 


90        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

all  this  has  no  object,  has  not  enough  sense  to  have  an 
object,  in  doing  it?     Blind  evolution?     Pah! 

In  every  class  of  animals  and  plants  the  problem  and 
labor  of  temperature-preservation  is  a  different  one.  Each 
group  has  its  peculiar  range,  above  and  below  which  con- 
trol of  cell-metabolism  is  lost.  In  a  general  way  the  lower 
or  more  simple  the  function,  the  simpler  the  cell-mechanism 
and  the  wider  the  range  of  temperature-change,  the  lower 
the  average  degree.  Plants  have  been  trained  to  perio- 
dicity of  function,  crowding  the  active  work  of  life  into  a 
few  of  the  summer  months,  shedding  their  lungs,  etc.,  and, 
as  it  were,  during  winter,  stilling  down  all  tissue-metamor- 
phosis to  the  lowest  degree,  they  preserve  the  mother-cells 
intact,  ready  to  redevelop  all  the  destroyed  organs  when 
outside  temperature  permits,  and  with  Spring's  coming  to 
reinstate  the  order  and  machinery  of  their  inner  purpose. 
The  hibernating  animals  in  their  way  have  a  similar  but 
far  more  limited  power.  The  entire  machinery  of  natural 
clothing,  bark,  hair,  feathers,  and  multiple  modifications 
of  skin  structures,  developed  in  response  to  the  need  of 
temperature-uniformity,  and  of  withstanding  the  increased 
radiation  in  cold  weather,  has  been  not  only  an  enormous 
tax  upon  energy  and  ingenuity,  but  has,  of  course,  been  a 
great  factor  in  governing  the  character  and  direction  of 
all  biologic  evolution.  The  few  degrees  of  permissible 
temperature-change  in  the  higher  animals  and  in  man,  shows 
the  complexity  and  delicacy  of  equilibrium  of  the  typical 
cell,  and  especially  of  the  higher  nerve-cells,  and  indicates 
the  heightened  task,  together  with  the  necessity  of  com- 
pensating for  climatic  changes  and  thermometric  differ- 
ences by  artificial  clothing,  housing,  and  fuel,  in  which  the 
work  of  humanization  and  civilization  so  largely  consists. 
Just  here  we  catch  suggestions  of  how  the  laws  of  cell-ac- 


CYTOLOGY.  QI 

tivity  and  cell-function  dependent  on  temperature,  reach 
out  into  all  the  institutions  and  developments  of  sociology 
and  commerce,  dictating  very  decidedly  the  character  and 
work  of  government  and  the  evolution  of  civilization  itself. 
If  God  could  control  and  preserve  cell-function  more 
easily,  ours  would  be  a  very  different  world.  All  work  and 
outlook  is  rigidly  conditioned  on  the  enormously  difficult 
task  of  keeping  His  little  instruments  in  a  delicately  poised 
temper  and  temperature  of  flux  and  obedient  plasticity. 

That  Biologos  works  only  through  the  cell-mechanism, 
and  that  through  this  mechanism  he  does  work  intelli- 
gently, is  exquisitely  illustrated  by  the  healing-processes 
of  wounds.  A  healing  and  knitting  wound  is  quite  as 
good  a  proof  of  God  as  a  sensible  mind  would  desire. 
Every  tissue  of  the  body,  even  the  bones,  has  this  beauti- 
ful power,  and  in  every  instance  there  is  an  adjustment  of 
means  to  ends,  an  intelligent  adaptation  to  the  ever- 
varying  circumstances,  that  is  consoling  to  behold.  A 
great  surgeon  has  said  that  in  some  cases  where  callus 
would  be  useless,  a  subtle  wisdom  seems  to  recognize  the 
fact  in  advance,  and  none  is  thrown  out ;  but  that  when  it 
would  be  of  possible  value,  heroic  efforts  are  made  to 
heal  the  fracture,  and  with  superabundant  callus.  Of  the 
general  means  of  healing,  however,  there  is  not  the  perfect 
disposal  that  existed  in  the  nascent  or  young  tissue.  In 
scurvy  and  in  other  diseased  conditions  of  the  general 
system,  old  healed  wounds  will  open  again,  and  scar- 
tissue  is  evidently  "making  the  best  of  a  bad  job."  In 
plants  there  is  the  same  power  of  healing  injuries  as  there 
is  in  animals,  and  the  similarity  of  the  two  processes  is  very 
striking.  With  a  nervous  mechanism  or  tool  to  help,  the 
two  processes  would  doubtless  be  identical.  Much  study 
has  been  given  to  the  healing  of  wounds  in  animal  tissues, 


92        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

but  little  or  none  in  plants,  which,  interesting  enough  for 
its  own  sake,  might  also  be  of  use  in  throwing  a  side-light 
on  human  surgery.  A  surgeon-philosopher  of  vegetable 
life  is  needed. 

The  entire  result  of  bacteriological  study  and  "  Lister- 
ism  "  is  summed  up  in  the  very  simple  advice :  "  Keep 
the  healing  wound  clean  and  free  from  any  interference  of 
living  or  inert  material  that  will  hinder  the  healing 
process."  The  wisdom  of  the  tissues  will  do  the  healing. 
The  surgeon's  duty  is  to  keep  the  interferences  away,  and 
to  help  nature  mechanically.  Except  cleanliness,  all  that 
can  be  done  outside  of  mechanics,  or  the  moving  and 
removal  of  masses,  Biologos  will  do  ;  because,  except 
indirectly  through  muscular  contraction,  He  is  incapable 
of  effecting  molar  motion.  The  action  of  the  concerned 
and  related  structures,  or  in  the  case  of  traumatism  or 
surgical  disease  of  the  entire  individual,  is  often  and  almost 
always  indicative  of  powerlessness  and  subtle  ingenuity 
in  trying  to  circumvent  it.  That  is  to  say,  God's  agent, 
man,  endowed  with  intelligent  disposal  of  mechanical 
energy,  denied  to  God  directly,  is  silently  but  longingly 
called  and  waited  for.  Man's  function  in  the  spiritual 
and  biological  evolution  of  cosmic  purpose  is  to  aid  and 
supplement  His  work,  to  do  as  helper,  and  mechanically, 
what  Biologos  can  not  directly  do.  Medicine  and  ethics 
alike  rest  upon  that  basis.  Thus  co-working,  these  two, 
Biologos  and  the  surgeon,  have  established  modern 
surgery,  and  the  splendid  bravery  of  the  surgeon  has 
always  been  followed  up,  completed,  and  complemented 
by  the  divine  loyalty  of  the  inherent  healing  and  curative 
power  resident  in  the  tissues  themselves.  In  the  history 
of  every  surgical  operation,  there  shine  between  the  lines 
and  behind  the  facts,  the  divine  eyes  of  intelligent  love, 


CYTOLOGY.  93 

denied  mechanical  power,  and  calling  for  the  hand  of  the 
loyal  surgeon  for  a  moment's  "  lift."  I  had  gathered  but 
may  not  describe  a  number  of  striking  instances  illustra- 
tive of  this  dumb  appeal  of  God,  and  failing  to  get  it,  of 
His  heroic  roundabout  methods,  the  best  with  the  means 
at  disposal,  taken  to  reach  the  end  that  intelligent  control 
of  mechanic  forces  could  give  in  a  minute.  The  extrusion 
of  a  renal  calculus  through  the  wall  of  the  renal  pelvis, 
and  on  through  intestinal  wall,  thence  naturally  got  rid 
of,  with  healing  of  the  two  vitally  dangerous  wounds ; 
the  cutting  by  peristalsis  of  several  feet  of  intussuscepted 
bowel,  and  its  passage  per  rectum,  with  reinstitution  of 
the  intestinal  lumen  ;  the  encysting  even  in  the  brain 
itself  of  foreign  bodies  that  could  not  be  pushed  out,  and 
thus  rendering  them  harmless ;  the  history  of  every 
sequestrum  ;  the  long  foresight  and  precaution  against 
possible  accident  shown  in  the  allowance  of  means  for 
collateral  circulation  ; — these  and  a  hundred  more — 
indeed,  as  I  have  said,  every  surgical  case,  to  the  sym- 
pathetic seeing  mind,  speak  the  lesson  emphasized.  Many 
volumes  have  been  written  and  lives  spent  to  discover 
the  philosophy  of  inflammation,  but  the  essence  of  all 
is  that  the  intelligence  of  the  cells  rushes  with  loyal 
response,  like  watchmen  and  repairers  to  a  dike-break, 
to  repair  the  injury  with  all  the  zeal  and  means  at  dis- 
posal. Inflammation  has  been  called  "  a  physiological 
process  strongly  exaggerated,"  and  Germain  See  has  de- 
fined it  as  "  a  struggle  for  life,  not  a  destructive  process, 
but  essentially  a  vital  phenomenon,  eminently  reactionary, 
against  a  morbid  agent."  The  function  of  the  white 
blood-corpuscles,  and  that  also  of  phagocytosis,  show  the 
same  sanitary  intelligence  of  the  cell. 

The  key  of  almost  all  the  tormenting  mysteries  of  our 


94        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

life  is,  I  have  said,  the  recognition  of  Biologos,  i.  e.,  com- 
bined mentality  and  life,  incarnating  Himself  in  material 
form,  by  the  sole  mechanism  of  the  cell,  and  contending 
with  the  infinite  difficulty  and  labor  consequent  upon 
poor,  obstinate,  and  dead  material,  and  upon  untoward 
circumstance.  Try  that  key  in  whatever  lock  closes  you 
out  from  intellectual,  ethic,  esthetic,  biologic,  or  socio- 
logic  satisfaction  and  answering,  and  you  will  be  charmed 
to  see  how  the  cosmos  glows  with  light  and  comprehen- 
sibility,  when  before  we  stood  in  dumb  suffering  against 
the  dead  walls  of  fate,  non-understandableness,  and 
despair.  If  my  own  twenty  years  of  heart-hunger,  mind- 
hunger,  and  stoical  abiding  in  the  inevitable,  have  taught 
me  the  value  of  loyalty  to  truth  as  seen,  the  end  of  the 
imprisonment  has  also  taught  me  that  modern  thought  is 
needlessly,  blindly,  and  illogically  atheistic  and  pessi- 
mistic, or  uselessly,  formalistically,  and  irreligiously 
theologic,  and  that  by  the  aid  of  natural  sane  human 
perception,  this  key  will  unlock  for  us  an  understanding 
of  the  living  purposive  world,  itself  the  very  flesh  and 
body  of  a  living,  loving  Father. 
ORGANOFACTION  is  THE  MECHANICALIZATION  AND 

AUTOMATONIZATION  OF  CELL-FUNCTION.— The  setting 
apart  of  a  number  of  physiologic  units  to  perform  one 
task  is  evidently  primarily  a  simple  method  of  conjoining 
the  separate  labors  of  individual  cells,  and  thus  massing 
their  work  to  a  common  use  and  end.  Their  special- 
ization, based  upon  the  possession  of  inherent  capacity 
by  the  undifferentiated  cell  to  perform  in  a  limited  way 
any  possible  function,  is  a  further  striking  extension  and 
proof  of  that  economy  of  labor  that  has  been  remarked 
by  every  biologist.  The  differentiation  of  cells  into  con- 
tractile elements  constitutes  the  muscular  system,  and 


CYTOLOGY.  95 

thus  Biologos  indirectly  reaches  mechanical  power,  other- 
wise impossible  to  Him.  The  independent  control  of 
mechanical  force  endows  man  with  responsibility  and 
power,  but  its  derived  nature  necessitates  the  conclusion 
that  man  must  hold  its  use  in  trust  for  and  according  to 
the  purposes  of  its  giver.  In  the  past  and  present  transi- 
tion-stages of  development,  Biologos  commands  the  ser- 
vice by  instinct,  poverty,  religion,  custom — all  such  being 
devices  that  enable  Him  to  keep  some  control  of  the  de- 
puted power,  until  by  intellectual  perception  combined 
with  loyalty,  man  shall  choose  the  right  use,  when  the  gift 
will  be  made  more  unconditional,  and  man  will  then 
become  the  intelligent  and  free  co-worker  with  the  divine. 
But  there  is  one  aspect  of  organofaction  that  to  my 
knowledge  has  not  been  recognized.  I  refer  to  the 
evident  fact  that  it  mediates  an  automatonization,  an 
ordering,  or  an  habitualization  of  function,  with  retain- 
ment  of  superior  control  by  the  great  Mechanician,  exactly 
analogous  to  every  use  of  the  body  by  individual 
man.  Every  habitual  act  or  art  of  man  is  first 
performed  with  conscious  volition.  Slowly  the  first 
difficult  steps  pass  into  unconscious  habit,  the  mind 
always  occupied  by  higher,  and  as  yet  unlearned  stages, 
but  retaining  a  slight  consciousness  of  the  lower  auto- 
matic actions,  and  always  capable  of  instantly  seizing 
them  and  directing  them  with  conscious  purpose.  Thus 
the  mind  teaches  the  mechanism,  as  it  were,  to  run 
itself,  or  delegates  to  subordinate  nerve-centres  the 
performance  of  repetitive  functions  whilst  devoting 
attention  to  higher  objects.  I  think  there  are  many 
facts  in  life  and  biological  science  that  go  to  show  a 
precisely  similar  method  on  the  part  of  Biologos.  The 
most  striking  illustrations  that  occur  to  me  are  teratologi- 


96        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

cal  facts,  where  an  accidently-missed  step  of  the  process, 
a  "  failure  of  connection,"  as  it  were,  or  some  other  yet 
unknown  cause,  mars  or  complicates  the  higher  design, 
and  the  automatic  machinery  goes  on  to  the  completion 
of  a  monstrosity  in  which  a  "  slip,"  or  a  glaring  loss  of 
control  of  the  subordinate  working-mechanism  is  pal- 
pably evident.  In  certain  tumor-formations  a  similar 
lesson  seems  evident.  A  bunch  of  cells  "told  off"  for  a 
specific  function,  gets  misplaced,  the  organogenetic  func- 
tion loses  control  of  them,  seems  thereafter  to  forget  them, 
and  to  become  incapable  of  hindering  them  from  their 
prearranged  development,  and  they  run  their  automatic 
course  of  life.  Pathology  is  proverbially  faulty  or  mor- 
bid physiology,  and  pathology  has  many  such  negative  or 
positive  illustrations  of  this  biologic  device.  The  per- 
sistence of  unused  structures  long  after  their  possible 
function  has  been  forgotten  and  undiscoverable,  will  to 
many  minds  suggest  this  as  the  explanation. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  the  possible 
vicissitudes  and  catastrophes  of  the  future  may  make 
Biologos  slow  to  utterly  do  away  with  old  mechanisms 
that  may  again  be  required.  So  doubtful  and  apparently 
absurd  as  it  may  seem,  we  may  yet  be  compelled  to  return 
to  the  primitive  "natural  clothing"  of  the  animal,  and  if 
so  the  partially  atrophied  hair-bulbs  would  be  at  least  a 
happy  economy. 

A  positive  example  of  the  truth  I  am  seeking  to  bring 
out  is  a  well-established  "  law  "  that  the  longer  an  organism 
has  been  subject  to  uniformity  of  condition  and  action 
the  less  capable  is  it  of  adaptation  to  changed  circum- 
stances. Habit,  of  course,  is  a  habit  of  the  component 
cells,  and  the  uniformity  of  cell-action  renders  them  less 
plastic  to  the  control  of  their  extra-cellular  master.  Too 


CYTOLOGY.  97 

long  or  too  great  uniformity  of  condition  is  therefore 
harmful  to  responsive  plasticity  and  adaptability.  But 
precisely  on  the  automatonization  (differentiation  or 
habit)  of  function  must  rest  the  certainty  and  uniform- 
ity of  nutrition  and  of  progress,  planting  ever  higher 
functions  and  uses  on  the  lower,  whilst  reserving 
control  of  results,  and  without  return  to  conscious 
readaptations  and  changes  of  the  lower.  The  automa- 
tonization must  be  progressive,  if  the  perfection  of 
personality  is  to  be  progressive.  Now,  incarnation  in  a 
world  subject  to  the  tremendous  differences  of  condition 
of  ours,  every  condition  being  of  unforeseeably  undue 
length,  shortness,  or  severity,  the  obstacles  to  an  orderly 
and  progressive,  or  a  desirably  speedy  perfection  of  the 
objects  of  incarnation  become  tremendous.  History, 
geologic,  anthropologic,  or  written,  is  strewn  with  the 
sad  evidences  of  the  many  desperate  attempts  and  fail- 
ures. Only  by  such  a  way  of  looking,  a  way  that  is  more- 
over justified  by  the  facts  about  us,  can  we  account  for 
the  history  of  biological  and  sociological  development,  and 
keep  intact  our  faith  in  and  reverence  for  an  overruling 
and  in-living  divinity.  Especially  in  human  history  do 
we  find  the  most  marked  illustrations  of  how  habit  and 
custom,  good  and  necessary  as  they  may  be  to  give  bases 
for  progressive  advance,  become  by  mere  momentum  and 
excess  of  automatonization  the  veriest  engines  of  evil. 
That  obedience  to  constituted  governmental  authority 
was  once  a  need  and  duty  of  superlative  benefit  to  the 
French  people,  there  can  be  no  more  awful  proof  than  the 
continuance  of  that  obedience  when  peasant-hunting  was 
an  amusement  of  "  nobles,"  and  when  that  authority 
levied  82  per  cent,  taxes  to  indulge  in  Versaillesism.  But 
repetition  stares  us  in  the  face  all  the  time,  and  our  own 

7 


98        THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

modern  method  of  concocting  thousands  of  millionaires 
on  the  infamous  plea  of  "  protection  to  American  labor" 
all  the  while  inviting  the  outside  world  of  " pauper  labor" 
to  come  here  and  compete  for  lowered  wages  and  buy 
manufactured  articles  at  advanced  prices, — a  happy  illus- 
tration of  the  machine  running  away  with  engineer, — is 
also  an  unhappy  illustration  of  the  possible  depth  of 
human  diabolic  selfishness.  I  do  not  argue  either  for  or 
against  "  the  restriction  of  immigration  " ;  I  argue  only 
against  the  hypocritic  illogicality. 

In  the  last  analysis  this  phenomena  of  the  automatoniza- 
tion  of  function  is  a  mere  consequence  of  the  specialization 
of  cell-function.  The  momentum  of  social  forces  carrying 
the  agent  past  the  point  of  objective  utility,  constantly 
seen  in  historic  events,  has  its  origin  in  specialized  cells 
outnumbering  and  outlasting  the  lessened  need  of  func- 
tion. Life  never  voluntarily  releases  possession  of  a  foot- 
hold once  gained,  and  the  differentiated  cell-agents 
partially  denied  either  nourishment  or  proper  activity 
persist  in  function  after  the  need  has  passed  away. 
Thus  arises  disease  of  the  physiological  as  well  as  of 
the  social  body.  It  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  un- 
pliable  material  and  of  fickle  circumstance,  that  Biologos 
has  not  yet  entirely  conquered.  The  conscious  loyal 
helpfulness  of  man  when  it  shall  awaken  and  respond, 
will  wondrously  aid  in  the  restoration  of  the  balance  of 
"  supply  and  demand,"  not  only  in  the  human  world  but 
in  the  vegetable  and  animal  as  well.  "  Teach  me  Thy  way, 
O  Lord,"  is  the  prayer  of  the  good  man,  whether  he  be 
meek  or  mighty.  The  bad  man  says  there  is  neither 
Lord,  nor  the  way  of  the  Lord,  and  derides  the  most 
beautiful  characteristic  of  teachableness. 

The  theory  of  De  Vries,  the  Dutch  botanist,  also  lends 


CYTOLOGY.  99 

support  to  the  view  of  a  diffused  intelligence  using  all 
parts  and  cells  of  the  nascent  organism  for  metaphysi- 
cal purposes  and  by  metaphysical  means.  The  latest 
researches  in  cellular  physiology  and  histology  are 
slowly  putting  to  one  side  the  theoretical,  cumbrous 
mechanism  of  heredity  devised  by  Weissmann,  and 
the  still  more  materialistic  one  of  Darwin.  Darwin's 
pangenesis-theory  supposed  that  each  of  the  different 
cells  of  the  body  gives  off  germ-cells  capable  of  repro- 
ducing themselves,  and  that  these  gemmules  penetrating 
the  specific  generative  cells  thus  reproduce  in  the  off- 
spring all  the  peculiarities  of  the  parent  body.  Weiss- 
mann supposes  two  classes  of  cells,  the  germ-cells  and 
the  body-cells,  the  first  transmitting  in  unbroken  con- 
tinuity from  generation  to  generation  the  hereditary 
characters.  This  ancestral  plasma  is  therefore  possessed 
of  "  immortality."  The  second  class,  the  body-cells,  com- 
posing the  body-plasma,  are  used  in  building  the  tissues 
of  the  individual  body.  De  Vries  proposes  to  designate 
the  cell  in  its  entirety  protoplast,  and  its  different  organs 
or  parts  he  terms  pangenes.  All  parts  of  the  cell — not  the 
nucleus  or  the  chromatin  rods  alone  but  the  chromato- 
phores,  chlorophyll-grains,  starch-spots,  membranes,  walls, 
and  even  the  vacuoles — all  parts  are  living,  vital,  separate, 
independent  organisms,  of  which  the  cell  is  the  com- 
pound organism  or  colony.  If  this  is  true,  as  it  appears 
to  be  admitted,  there  is  plainly  seen  the  invisible  hand  of 
Biologos  at  work  differentiating,  shaping,  modifying,  and 
using  any  and  all  means  and  parts  of  this  little  cell-uni- 
verse. According  to  De  Vries  it  is  not  the  nucleus  alone, 
but  all  the  pangenes  help  to  effect  the  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  organization.  In  offspring  the  pangenes  grow 
into  separate  organisms  of  a  character  like  those  of  the 


IOO     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

parent.  What  is  this  but  to  say  that  Biologos  continues 
His  work  from  the  point  attained,  from  the  advantage 
gained,  and  with  the  cellTmechanism  acquired.  We  pro- 
ceed to  a  distant  point  by  starting  from  where  we  stand. 
The  cell  as  it  exists  must  form  the  basis  of  the  cell  that 
is  to  be.  Absolute  and  sudden  change  there  can  never 
be,  only  modification  of  the  existing  mechanism.  Slowly 
but  surely  there  is  shaping  itself  in  the  minds  of  the 
genuinely  scientific  the  necessary  recognition  of  the  truth 
that  a  metaphysical  life  is  working  out  through  the  physi- 
cal cell  an  extra-cellular  purpose  or  intelligent  will,  which 
is  cramped  and  hindered  of  free  effectualization  by  the 
fact  of  cell-habit,  cell-mechanism,  and  cell-nutrition.  The 
frank  acknowledgment  of  this  extra-cellular  mechanician 
would  speedily  resolve  a  multitude  of  mysteries  and 
difficulties  that  now  block  progress,  because  of  the  im- 
possible attempt  to  explain  cellular  physiology  by  purely 
material  or  physical  principles.  In  many  organisms  the 
so-called  germ-plasma,  or,  in  other  words,  God's  ability 
to  reproduce  an  organ  or  an  organism,  is  plainly  scattered 
throughout  the  body.  Precisely  !  and  because  God  Him- 
self is  scattered  throughout  the  body.  In  these  less  dif- 
ferentiated organisms  the  cells  are  still  so  plastic  that 
working  from  where  He  stands,  and  with  the  acquired 
material,  He  can  reproduce  lost  parts.  Thus  in  the  newt 
or  lobster  the  amputated  tail  or  claw  will  regrow,  the 
snail's  lost  eye  re-form,  and  an  Italian  naturalist,  Mingaz- 
zini,  has  seen  the  entire  brain  of  Tunicata,  with  all  its 
processes,  develop  after  its  entire  destruction.  Every 
lover  of  flowers  knows  how  a  whole  plant  of  certain  kinds 
will  grow  from  a  small  part,  or  a  "  slip  "  stuck  in  the 
ground. 


~i5_ 

IBRAR"> 

;** 


CHAPTER  V. 
SENSATION. 

THE  mystery  and  wonderfulness  of  sensation  have 
hardly  been  appreciated,  often  not  recognized  by 
physiologists.  From  the  ordinary  text-books  one 
would  gather  that  when  a  series  of  waves  of  air  or  of  ether 
appears  to  us  as  tone  or  as  color,  it  is  quite  as  much  a  matter 
of  course  as  when  one  pan  of  a  balance  goes  up  and  the 
other  down.  But  a  moment's  reflection  shows  us  no  dis- 
coverable relation  or  likeness  between  the  stimulus  and 
the  sensation.  There  is  as  great  or  a  greater  difference 
between  any  two  color-sensations  as  between  the  sensation 
of  color  and  that  of  tone,  and  there  is  no  hint  to  our  minds 
why  either  should  be  what  it  is,  or  why  a  certain  stimulus 
should  produce  a  certain  result.  But  to  an  alert  mind 
nothing  so  inevitably  forces  the  suggestion  of  a  hyper- 
physical,  designing,  choosing,  utilizing,  ingenious  artist 
and  mechanician,  as  does  the  study  of  sensation.  A  ma- 
terialistic or  an  atheistic  physiologist  is  certainly  the  most 
illogical  and  absurd  being  that  can  be  imagined,  and  yet 
one  as  much  expects  to  hear  from  every  second  physiolo- 
gist the  sardonic  sneer  at  "  vital  force,"  as  to  hear  the 
heart  called  a  pump  or  the  lungs  an  oxygenating  machine. 
Every  sensation  and  sensing  mechanism  shows  a  choice 
from  an  almost  infinitely  extended  series  of  wave-stimuli 
of  a  limited,  Useful,  and  utilizable  portion,  and  a  rejection 
of  those  not  useful  or  utilizable.  Every  one  shows  a  pur- 

101 


THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

posive  and  a  specific  function  of  value  to  the  organism, 
and  such  adaptations  and  modifications  as  are  peculiarly 
useful  to  it.  Every  utilized  stimulus  appears  on  the 
mental  side,  or  to  consciousness,  as  something  so  utterly 
different  from  its  original  nature  that,  were  it  not  for  the 
sequence  of  stimulus  and  sensation,  the  latter  would  never 
be  suspected  of  having  any  relation  to  the  first.  The 
mechanism  intermediating  the  known  cause  and  the 
mysterious  effect  is  one  that  shows  peripheral  receiving, 
or  end-organs,  at  every  point  of  the  skin,  and  from  every 
particle  of  tissue,  that  lead  to  a  unifying,  responding, 
central  intelligence,  upon  whose  control  and  government 
the  life  and  function  of  each  part  and  of  the  whole  de- 
pends. The  mechanism  is  clumsily,  but  so  far  as  it  goes, 
accurately  analogized  by  that  of  the  switch-board  and  the 
city  telegraph-office,  which,  from  the  local  offices  in  every 
part  of  the  land,  receive  accurate  reports  in  cipher-mes- 
sages, understood  by  no  operator  or  clerk,  of  every  ex- 
ternal condition,  and  through  this  central  governing  office, 
again  by  cipher,  orders  and  controls  every  distant  part  in 
accordance  with  need,  desire,  and  circumstance.  But  as 
the  writing  and  written  telegram  is  unlike  the  transmitting 
instrument  and  Morse  alphabet,  as  the  electricity  is  an 
alien  utilized  force,  as  the  manufacture  of  dots,  dashes, 
and  spaces  first  into  the  known-unknown  jumble  of  Roman 
letters,  and  then  by  the  solitary  intelligence  into  mean- 
ingful and  understandable  messages, — just  so  is  the  crude 
stimulus  of  sensation  passed  through  non-understood 
biological  mechanisms,  by  means  of  foreign  forces,  and  is 
translated  into  significance  and  usefulness  only  by  the 
ganglionic  centers  and  their  manipulating  mental  governor. 
The  importance  of  the  nerves  (telegraph  wires),  and  of 
the  central  ganglionic  or  nervous  centers  (home  office)  is 


SENS  A  TION.  103 

shown  by  the  fact  that  embryologically  these  structures 
are  among  the  first  organs  created,  and  that  in  death  by 
starvation  they  are  not  touched.  Neurologic  life  outlasts 
somatic  or  molecular  life. 

There  are  multitudes  of  facts  in  physiology  and  in 
pathology  that  show  the  highest  biological  control  in 
closer  and  more  immediate  contact  with  nerve,  ganglionic, 
and  cerebral  structures,  and  through  them  governing  the 
semi-automatonized  peripheral  organs.  The  higher  nerv- 
ous structures  are  immensely  complex  in  atomic  constitu- 
tion, and  the  greater  the  molecular  complexity  the  greater 
is  the  contained  force,  the  more  unstable,  and  the  more 
subject  are  they  to  delicate  disturbance — i.  e.,  the  more 
absorbed  attention  and  unerring  accuracy  of  adjustment 
are  required  of  Biologos.  Hence  in  death  by  starvation 
we  understand  why  there  is  a  preservation  of  the  imme- 
diate organs  of  control  and  a  feeding  of  these  upon  the 
muscles  and  less  important  peripheral  organs. 

Following  the  invitation  a  step  further  one  may  truth- 
fully say  that  the  whole  body,  the  generative  organs  ex- 
cepted,  is  but  the  mechanism  of  nutrition  of  the  higher 
sensations  and  the  brain.  The  body  exists  to  furnish  the 
cerebral  centers  with  prepared  food,  just  as  the  vegetable 
world  viewed  biologically  exists  to  furnish  the  animal  world 
with  similar  food.  The  higher  is  the  last  formed,  the  most 
difficult,  and  the  most  complex, — but  it  is  just  this  that  is 
most  precious,  and  significant, — all  of  which,  in  biological 
development,  shows  the  unrolling  purpose,  and  the  succes- 
sive and  progressive  preliminariness  of  all  the  preceding 
stages.  It  is  the  last  that  alone  explains  all  that  went 
before,  and  it  is  the  coming  that  will  alone  explain  the 
present.  God  before  all,  through,  foreseeing,  and  still 
preparing  all,  is  profoundly  evident.  But  it  should  not 


104      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

fail  of  observance  that  the  purposivenessand  intermediate- 
ness  of  every  stage  does  not,  as  in  the  telegraph  or  any 
other  analogy,  reduce  any  structure  to  pure  mechanicalism 
or  to  perfect  automatonization.  This  is  evidenced  in  the 
healing  of  wounds  and  numerous  other  facts.  The  subor- 
dination and  differentiation  of  function  are  never  absolute 
and  complete,  but  at  any  instant,  like  any  good  military 
commander,  Biologos  may  step  down  from  the  highest 
command  and  generalship,  to  lead,  encourage,  and  use 
single  cell-companies,  or  the  smallest  of  "  squads,"  with 
perfect  command  and  with  definite  purpose.  The  con- 
sciously-acquired function  never  passes  entirely  into  the 
unconscious  or  automatic.  Representation  and  deputiza- 
tion  never  become  forgetful  of  responsibility,  because 
final  authority  is  lodged  only  in  one  mind,  whatever  agents 
and  helps  are  devised  and  allowed. 

Such  a  chief  help  and  agent  is  the  nervous  system,  but, 
to  the  last  correlating  centre,  its  every  particle  is  plainly 
though  not  absolutely  an  instrument,  a  tool,  though  not 
solely  a  tool,  of  the  mind.  Not  solely,  I  say,  because  it 
is  the  unique  quality  of  God,  to  overflow  all  He  does  with 
such  largeness  of  love  and  plenitude  of  life  that  each  in- 
carnation, however  subordinate,  has  joy  in  being.  I  am 
quite  sure  the  tree  and  every  vegetable  growing  thing  has 
satisfactions,  aspirations,  delights,  and  a  degree  of  con- 
sciousness that  reward  it  for  its  limited  powers  and  lowly 
uses,  and  is  evidence  of  the  beautiful  divinity  always 
larger  than  His  work  and  ever  having  pleasure  in  His  work. 
So  in  a  higher  degree  with  the  animal,  and  so  of  course 
superbly  with  God's  highest  deputy,  man.  But  even  each 
cell  and  each  organ  has  its  own  special  and  indisputable 
part  in  the  silent  song  of  all  right-doing  things.  What- 
ever God  touches  is  ever  afterwards  ennobled,  and  the 


SENSATION.  105 

veriest  rag  or  piece  of  leather  of  the  ash-bin  is  possessed 
of  divine  memories  and  qualities  that  arouse  in  the  clair- 
voyant mind  a  thousand  thoughts  and  suggestions  of  its 
far-way  origin  and  history.  Organization  is  like  the 
photographer's  sensitive  plate  of  which,  when  once  God 
has  flashed  into  it  His  life,  the  dead  particles  will  ever 
afterward  show  the  lineaments  of  the  divine  face,  until 
elemental  decomposition  is  utterly  complete. 

A  noteworthy  fact  about  sensation  is  that  with  two  ex- 
ceptions its  stimuli,  of  whatever  kind,  are  vibrations.  The 
first  exception  is  the  muscular  sense,  that  of  weight,  ten- 
sion, or  muscular  effort,  the  least  useful  and  the  least 
used  of  all  the  senses,  so  inaccurate  and  dumb  that  we 
see  how  difficult  it  is  for  spirit  to  reach  any  sort  of  rela- 
tionship with  masses  and  molar  motions,  even  of  the  body 
itself. 

In  touch,  the  pressure  sense,  the  stimulus  is  of  mass, 
but  of  such  slight  degrees  that  it  approaches  the  delicacy 
of  the  infinitesimal  forces  of  the  other  senses,  and, 
moreover,  the  molar  force  is  undoubtedly  at  once  re- 
ceived and  mediated  by  the  crowding  of  the  molecular 
vibrations  of  the  end-organs  upon  the  delicately  poised 
molecular  balance  of  the  true  tactile  element.  With  any 
high  degree  of  pressure,  there  is  speedy  paralysis,  and 
pressure  of  whole  organs  is  perceived  as  the  pain  of  in- 
jury, or  of  interference  with  organic  function.  All  pain 
is  the  evidence  of  heightened  or  interfered-with  molecular 
or  nutritional  function — always,  one  recognizes,  a  question 
of  infinitesimal  vibrations  perceived  or  utilized. 

But  however  caused,  all  peripheral  stimuli  must  at  once 
be  transformed  into  nerve-force,  of  which  we  know  little 
except  that  it  is  vibratory.  At  the  ultimate  center  the 
agency  of  the  transfer  to  spirit,  the  final  mechanism  of 


106      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

the  relations  of  Biologos  and  matter,  is  beyond  question 
that  of  the  molecular  and  atomic  vibrations  within  the 
highly  organized  cell,  which  is  the  means  of  influence 
upon  or  from  the  metaphysical. 

We  now  know  that  the  skin  has  limited  areas  and  related 
end-organs,  of  course  with  intermediating  and  back-run- 
ning nerve-fibers,  for  the  sensations  of  cold,  and  yet  others 
for  those  of  heat.  Impinging  atomic  and  molecular 
vibrations  below  the  health-norm  in  number  are  per- 
ceived as  "  cold,"  and  those  above  the  standard  are 
perceived  as  "  heat."  But  out  of  the  infinite  range  of 
such  degrees  of  vibration,  only  a  tiny  part  or  scale  is 
chosen  and  utilized  by  the  organism.  These  crude  senses 
are  plainly  those  of  the  lowest  uses,  such  as  defending, 
guarding,  helping,  and  they  have  little  psychic  significance 
or  value,  except,  and  then  in  a  still  partial  degree,  when 
the  mind  is  deprived  of  light  and  sound.  In  such  cases 
there  is  possible  a  wonderful  education  and  psychic  ex- 
tension of  them.  God  can  always  as  it  were,  re-enter 
and  live  again  in  his  old  dwellings,  set  them  to  semi-auto- 
matic tasks,  remould  and  re-use  his  humblest  still-plastic 
mechanisms,  and  make  them  shine  with  unwonted  light 
and  glory. 

I  once  experienced  an  odd  series  of  feelings  that 
brought  vividly  to  mind  the  fact  that  life,  emotion,  and 
happiness  are  compatible  with  great  differences  in  and 
deprivations  of  ordinary  mental  stimuli.  A  social  gather- 
ing was  going  on  in  a  large  hall,  and  the  sounds  of  excel- 
lent music,  dancing,  laughter,  and  gayety  came  from  this 
room  where  a  hundred  or  more  happy  folk  were  passing 
happy  hours.  Upon  opening  the  door  and  being  ushered 
into  the  hall  the  room  was  found  to  be  as  dark  as  mid- 
night. Not  a  thing  could  be  seen.  It  was  the  social 


SENSATION.  ID/ 

hour  of  the  inmates  of  an  institution  for  the  blind  !  The 
first  uncanny,  creepy  feeling  was  soon  dissipated  by  the 
thought  of  congratulation  that  indomitable  mind  and 
spontaneous  emotion,  though  deprived  of  light  and  vision, 
could  still  find  satisfaction  and  play  through  the  medium 
of  indirect  sensation.  Soul  still  conquered  sense  ! 

The  same  thought  is  exemplified  and  emphasized  by  a 
consideration  of  the  report  of  a  convention  of  deaf-mutes. 
One  is  apt  thoughtlessly  to  pass  over  the  beginning  of  the 
report  that  says,  "  The  meeting  was  called  to  order  by 
the  president,  who  rapped  vigorously  on  the  desk  to 
attract  the  attention  of  his  audience."  An  audience  of 
deaf-mutes  called  to  order  by  a  noise  !  Those  who  see  a 
blind  man  tapping  the  street  in  front  of  him,  as  he  walks, 
are  likely  to  think  that  this  is  solely  to  avoid  objects  that 
the  cane  may  strike.  It  is  also  to  avoid  objects  that  the 
cane  does  not  strike — because  to  the  blind  man's  ears  and 
hand  there  is  a  timbre  from  the  blows  upon  the  pavement 
near  its  edge,  near  posts  or  steps,  that  is  very  different 
from  the  resonance  when  the  blow  is  not  near  such  objects. 
It  is  said  that  blinded  bats  are  able  to  fly  unharmed, 
avoiding  objects  in  their  flight  by  means  of  the  percep- 
tion of  an  increase  of  barometric  pressure  of  the  air  close 
to  those  objects — so  sensitive  to  variations  of  pressure  is 
the  expanded  interdigital  membrane.* 

A  suggestion  is  indirectly  aroused  by  this  fact  as  to  the 
"  relaying,"  if  one  may  so  speak,  of  crude  and  faint  stimu- 
lation by  the  mechanism  of  the  nerve-ganglia  and  centers. 
There  is  a  nervous  device  that  reinforces  and  transforms 
whilst  also  repeating  the  subtle,  weak,  and  in  themselves 

*  The  experimental  blinding  of  the  bat,  however,  was  not  necessary, 
because  millions  of  bats  winter  in  Mammoth  Cave,  miles  from  the  faintest 
ray  of  light. 


108      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

meaningless,  hints  of  the  external  world  that  we  call 
sense-impression.  It  is  the  living  prototype  of  the  electri- 
cian's "relay"  and  microphone  combined.  Thus  all 
man's  mechanic  devices  are  but  poor  imitations  and  repe- 
titions of  what  Life's  vital  forces  have  long  ago  brought 
to  wondrous  perfection ! 

In  the  deaf-mutes'  convention  prayer  was  said,  the  roll 
called,  addresses  made,  business  conducted,  and  long 
sessions  held — all  in  the  sign-language — all  in  silence  ! 
"The  amended  constitution  and  by-laws  were  adopted 
after  a  lively  debate."  If  present,  our  blind  friends  would 
certainly  have  thought  the  meeting  very  strange  and 
stupid.  But  the  success  in  raising  funds  for  a  proposed 
home  for  aged  and  infirm  mutes,  and  the  discussion  of 
other  worthy  objects,  made  the  gathering  a  very  interest- 
ing one  for  the  attending  delegates. 

According  to  the  Paris  correspondent  of  the  London 
Times  the  method  of  analyzing  motion  by  the  chrono- 
photograph,  which  has  been  so  happily  applied  by  M. 
Marey  in  the  case  of  moving  animals,  such  as  horses  run- 
ning or  birds  and  insects  in  flight,  has  recently  been 
employed  by  M.  G.  Demeny,  a  preparator  at  the  physio- 
logical station  of  M.  Marey,  to  examine  the  movements  of 
the  lips  in  speaking.  He  has  obtained  results  which  show 
that  the  form  of  the  mouth  is  quite  different  for  the  dif- 
ferent articulate  sounds.  With  these  photographs  com- 
bined in  a  zoetrope  he  has  reproduced  the  movements  of 
the  lips  by  synthesis.  An  ordinary  person  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  read  the  words  by  the  animated  pictures ;  but  a 
deaf-mute  who  has  been  accustomed  to  read  from  the 
lips  of  a  speaker,  found  it  easy  to  do  so  from  the  photo- 
graphs. A  young  pupil  of  the  National  Institute  of 
Deaf-Mutes  in  France  could  read  the  vowels  and  diph- 


SENS  A  TION.  ICQ 

thongs  as  well  as  the  labials.  The  first  experiments  were 
of  course,  not  all  that  could  be  desired  ;  but,  in  bringing 
the  matter  before  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  M. 
Demeny  expressed  the  hope  that  in  continuing  his  re- 
searches he  would  be  able  to  develop  a  new  method  of 
educating  deaf-mutes  by  sight  from  more  perfect  photo- 
graphic images.  Obviously  a  magic-lantern  lecture  might 
be  delivered  to  an  audience  of  deaf-mutes  in  this  way. 

The  encouraging  and  deeply  suggestive  fact  of  rescu- 
ing the  faculty  and  power  of  speech  in  these  deaf-mutes 
is  one  that  commands  our  sympathy.  There  is  no  limit 
to  the  ingenuity  of  Life  and  to  her  triumphs  over  adverse 
circumstances  and  deprived  stimuli.  We  have  all  read 
of  another  striking  example — very  different  in  kind,  of 
course,  but  illustrating  the  same  great  truth.  One  of 
England's  greatest  statesmen  was  blind  ;  so  was  a  great 
numismatologist ;  and  another  of  her  great  men,  a  hunter 
and  rider  of  unexampled  daring,  a  peerless  sportsman,  an 
excellent  business  man,  and  an  active  administrator,  had 
neither  arms,  hands,  legs,  nor  feet.  One  is  reminded  of 
the  philosopher's  answer  to  the  Millerite  who  excitedly 
told  him  that  the  world  was  to  come  to  an  end  that  day : 
"  Oh,  well !  "  was  the  answer,  "  we  can  get  on  very  well 
without  it." 

It  would  seem  that  if  loss  of  sight  were  added  to  loss 
of  hearing  and  speech,  naught  but  tragedy  and  melancholy 
could  be  left,  or  that  merely  the  routine  life  of  the  lowest 
functions  such  as  those  of  nutrition,  would  persist.  But 
there  are  few  happier  and  brighter-minded  people  than 
Laura  Bridgman  was  and  than  Helen  Keller  is.  Another, 
a  man  likewise  deprived  of  these  great  avenues  of  influence 
from  and  communication  with  the  external  world,  without 
which  life  to  us  would  seem  so  barren,  travelled  all  over 


I  10      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

the  United  States  alone,  raised  a  family,  and  lived  out  his 
period  of  brave  and  satisfied  life.  He  could  talk  with 
anybody  by  means  of  the  ingenious  device  of  tattooing 
the  English  alphabet  upon  his  hand.  Words  and  sentences 
were  spelled  out  and  recognized  by  the  positions  of  the 
letters  touched. 

The  emotional  life  of  these  imprisoned  souls,  cut  off 
from  so  many  relations  and  avenues  of  interchange  with 
the  external  world,  must  be  all  the  more  vivid  and  hyper- 
sensitive. A  coarse  jar  of  the  hyperesthetic  receiving  end- 
organ  of  sense  is  transformed  into  a  rude  thunder  by  the 
highly  attuned  and  delicately  responsive  microphone  of 
the  inner  sensation-making  mechanism.  Thus  the  possi- 
bility of  causing  sharp  sorrow  is  a  necessary  concomitant 
of  the  ease  of  eliciting  joy.  It  is  the  glory  of  civilization 
to  care  for  such  and  shield  them  from  pain,  and  it  is  the 
delight  of  medicine  to  minister  to  them  its  healing.  It  is 
hard  to  sympathetically  understand  and  realize  the  inner 
life  of  these  almost  windowless  minds.  How  strange  must 
seem  to  them  the  dreams  and  somnambulisms  of  never-to- 
be  awakened  emotions,  the  dumb  reaching-out  toward 
reality  of  denied  possibilities,  the  unsatisfied  hungerings 
of  imprisoned  sensibilities.  Their  minds  must  be  thrilled 
by  dim  hereditary  echoes  and  the  far-away  caresses  of 
ghostly  ancestral  hands.  With  what  pathetic  half-respon- 
siveness do  these  shut-in  souls  catch  the  shimmer  of 
long-departed  life,  that  comes  to  them  like  the  last  faint 
evening  flushings  reflected  from  distant  mountain-tops  to 
valley  dwellers  that  are  in  the  night. 

The  sense  of  taste  is  a  response  to  the  molecular  vibra- 
tions of  dissolvable  bodies,  and.  its  purpose  and  use  are 
evident.  But  even  with  as  lowly  and  temporary  a  func- 
tion as  this  there  is  proof  of  self-satisfaction,  a  beneficence 


SENSA  TION.  1 1 1 

that  surcharges  pure  use  with  a  luxury  of  pleasure  and  of 
diversity,  and  is  never  content  with  leaving  brute  utility 
without  a  touch  of  useless  but  delightful  heaven.  If 
Biologos  were  satisfied  with  telling  the  eater  simply  what 
was  good  and  what  was  bad  food,  varying  degrees  of  one 
kind  of  sensation  would  have  been  sufficient  warning. 
Bitterness,  pungency,  acidity,  and  a  hundred  other  un- 
pleasant tastes,  would  have  been  alike  or  with  varying 
degrees  of  disagreeableness,  whilst  of  pleasant  things  a 
thousand  delightful-tasting  fruits  and  edible  goods  would 
have  been  alike,  or  all  simply  savory  more  or  less, — not,  as 
now,  with  the  exquisite  differences  as  from  utterly  different 
orders  or  types  of  stimuli,  that  give  a  passing  pleasure 
and  invite  to  an  educational  examination,  and  to  the  crea- 
tion of  new  forms. 

Similarly,  the  perception  of  the  vibrations  of  volatile 
bodies  by  the  mechanism  of  smell  is  a  function  not  only 
of  utility,  but  has  exquisite  extensions,  psychic  pleasures, 
and  uses,  that  recall  the  same  kind  elaboration  and 
bountifulness.  But  our  atrophied  organ  is  indifferent  to 
a  million  of  existing  perfumes.  The  uses  of  the  sense  of 
smell  in  wild  animals  are  numerous  and  of  an  exquisite 
perfection.  The  odors  of  every  animal,  peculiar  to  each 
family  and  even  to  each  individual,  are  the  determining 
agents  in  warning  against  enemies,  in  preserving  the  hives 
of  bees  from  intruders,  in  telling  of  the  existence  of  water, 
or  of  better  pasturage,  as  many,  it  is  said,  as  five  hundred 
miles  away,  in  telling  of  approaching  storms,  in  protecting 
(by  disgust,  etc.,)  from  enemies  or  noxious  agents,  or  in 
avoiding  toxic  substances  or  malnutritional  food.  It  is 
said  that  1-46,000,000  of  a  milligram  of  mercaptan  can 
be  perceived  by  the  sense  of  smell. 

But  in  the  uses  and  out-building  of  the  sensation  of 


112      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

hearing  we  stand  amazed  at  the  exuberant  and  spon- 
taneous life  beyond  any  possible  use.  Gratuity  is  heaped 
upon  abundance,  and,  with  swelling  heart,  the  mind 
through  music,  as  Beethoven  said  of  himself,*  comes  into 
close  union  with  God.  The  perfection  of  the  sense  of 
hearing,  and  the  relatively  complete  utilization  of  all 
lengths  of  aerial  waves,  provokes  comment  and  inquiry. 
There  is  considerable  evidence  and  much  proof  that  insects 
and  other  living  organisms  have  sensory  mechanisms  that 
react  to  aerial  wave-lengths  far  smaller  than  our  own  ears 
respond  to.  The  upper  limit  of  perception  of  the  human 
ear  varies  in  different  individuals,  but  below  some  5,000 
vibrations  per  second,  our  ears  and  auditory  centers  have 
a  marvellous  perfection  of  response  to  wave  rapidity, 
wave-dimension,  and  wave-shape,  respectively  called  by 
us  pitch,  loudness,  and  timbre.  When  one  ponders  upon 
the  individual  perception  and  easy  analysis  of  the  multi- 
tudinous synchronous  tones  and  qualities  of  tones  of  a 
full  orchestra,  one  is  lost  in  wonder  that  the  auditory 
mechanism  can  intermediate  and  unravel  the  whole. 

And  gratitude  outruns  wonder  when  we  think  of  the 
magnificent  unnecessariness  of  the  gift.  For  simple 
utility's  sake  the  whole  could  undoubtedly  have  been 
made  infinitely  simpler,  danger  foretold,  and  needed  help 
gained  as  to  the  environment  without  the  magical  richness 
and  endowment  superadded  to  the  necessary.  This  per- 
fection of  mechanism  has  been  possible  because  of  the 
combined  strength  and  fluidity  of  the  stimulus.  Of  the 
two  gaseous  oceans,  the  air  and  the  ether,  in  which  we 
live,  the  latter  has  acted  with  such  incomprehensible  small- 

*  "  I  well  know  that  God  is  nearer  to  me  in  my  art  than  to  others.  I  com- 
municate with  Him  without  fear ;  evermore  have  I  acknowledged  Him 
and  understood  Him." 


^^  SENSATION.  113 

ness  and  lightness  of  force  that  it  has  presented  the 
frightful  obstacles  to  the  elaboration  of  its  reacting 
mechanism  to  which  I  shall  allude  by  and  by.  But  in  the 
aerial  waves  there  is  a  sufficient  strength  of  force,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  sufficiently  high  degree  of  gaseousness  or 
fluidity,  to  assure  pliancy  and  rapidity  of  act  consonant 
both  with  mental  speed  of  movement  and  suppleness,  and 
with  the  concentrated  play  of  external  event.  The  mind 
itself  would  most  certainly  be  more  at  home  with  a  stim- 
ulus and  mechanism  infinitely  more  subtle  and  rapidly- 
acting  than  air  and  auditory  apparatus,  but  the  difficulties 
of  creating  a  mechanism  respondent  to  such  slight  and 
rapid  undulations  is  enormous  and  is  exemplified  in  the 
case  of  the  eye.  To  sound-waves,  however,  though  for 
the  highest  mental  use  greatly  too  crude  and  slow,  Biolo- 
gos,  with  characteristic  ingenuity,  has  a  recipient  and 
intermediating  mechanism  that  gives  us  two  wondrous 
languages  of  emotional  and  psychic  life.  Speech  and 
Music  ! — what  suggestions  the  simple  words  call  up  !  How 
intolerably  pathetic  would  our  life  be  without  them — ap- 
parently, and  now  that  we  know  them— because, — Hush  ! 
—there  ever  recurs  the  inexhaustible  idea  of  the  love  and 
richness  of  God,  as  the  warning  thought  quickly  breaks 
into  our  thankfulness  that  neither  tree  nor  animal  has 
these  awful  blessings,  and  yet  are  they  happy,  still  are 
they  ever  satisfied.  The  compensations  and  bounteous- 
ness  of  blessing  of  the  lower  are  not  lessened  by  the 
superlative  lavishness  of  the  unexpected  gift  of  the 
higher.  So  kind,  so  kind,  is  the  dear  Father  of  us  all! 

It  is  often  said  that  music  is  the  one  creation  of  abso- 
lute novelty  of  the  human  being,  and  that  herein  man 
shows  himself,  as  it  were,  superior  to  God.  The  thought 
would  be  unworthy  of  mention  were  it  not  seriously  and 


114      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

persistently  repeated  by  the  human  egotist.  How  He 
must  smile  at  such  childish  prattle  !  Even  if  it  were  true 
we  might  at  least  thank  Him  for  the  instruments,  for  the 
permission,  and  for  the  outfitting  of  neurological  and  men- 
tal mechanism.  "  He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  He  not 
hear?  And  He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?  " 
But  the  egotist  did  not  know  the  birds.  Even  the  few 
poor,  dwarfish,  prosaic  little  birds  that  hang  to  the  fringes 
of  our  temperate-zone  civilization  show  him  gladness  and 
music  at  the  heart  of  life.  But  it  is  only  in  tropical  birds, 
they  that  have  not  been  blasted  by  the  devilish  impiety 
of  man's  cruelty,  that  can  sing  as  God  would  have  them 
sing.  I  would  call  particular  attention  to  Hudson's 
exquisite  chapter  on  music  and  dancing  in  birds  and 
animals,  in  The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata.  Among  other 
things  he  says: 

"  My  experience  is  that  mammals  and  birds  with  few  excep- 
tions— probably  there  are  no  exceptions — possess  the  habit  of  in- 
dulging frequently  in  more  or  less  regular  or  set  performances, 
with  or  without  sound,  or  composed  of  sound  exclusively,  often  of 
the  most  complex  and  beautiful  forms.  .  .  .  Many  songsters  in 
widely  different  families  of  birds  possess  the  habit  of  soaring  and 
falling  alternately  while  singing,  and  in  some  cases  all  the  aerial 
postures  and  movements,  the  swift  or  slow  descent,  vertical, 
often  with  oscillations,  or  in  a  spiral,  and  sometimes  with  a  suc- 
cession of  smooth,  oblique  lapses,  seem  to  have  an  admirable 
correspondence  with  the  changing  and  falling  voice — melody 
and  motion  being  united  in  a  more  intimate  and  beautiful  way 
than  in  the  most  perfect  and  poetic  forms  of  human  dancing." 

Note  especially  his  discription  of  the  song  of  the  white- 
banded  mocking-bird.  Of  the  spur-winged  crested 
screamer,  a  noble  bird  as  large  as  a  swan,  he  says : — 


SENSATION.  115 

"  Its  favorite  pastime  is  to  soar  upwards  until  it  loses  itself  to 
sight  in  the  blue  ether,  whence  it  pours  forth  its  resounding 
choral  notes,  which  reach  the  distant  earth  clarified,  and  with 
a  rythmic  swell  and  fall  as  of  chiming  bells.  It  also  sings  by 
night,  *  counting  the  hours,'  as  the  gauchos  say,  and  when  they 
have  congregated  together  in  tens  of  thousands,  the  mighty  roar 
of  their  combined  voices  produces  an  astonishingly  grand  effect." 

Hudson  rightly  judges  that  the  songs  and  flights  and 
dances  of  birds  and  animals  are  not,  as  Darwin  would  have 
us  believe,  due  to  erotic  fury.  He  says  they  are  due  to 
the  genuine  pure  gladness  in  the  heart  of  the  bird.  For 
example,  the  male  birds  often  arrive  first  in  their  migra- 
tions, and  even  with  the  female  absent  and  pairing  time  a 
month  hence,  their  songs  burst  forth  most  divinely.  Wal- 
lace also,  together  with  Ruskin,  agrees  that  brilliancy  of 
color  goes  with  vigor  of  life  and  purity  of  substance. 

But  the  egotist  also  forgot  to  say  who  created  the 
mechanism  of  the  human  voice  and  of  song,  the  memory 
of  melody,  and  the  grief  or  the  gladness  of  heart  that  finds 
expression  in  the  pathos  and  splendor  of  music.  For 
purposes  of  speech  alone,  for  the  simple  necessity  of  the 
mechanical  intercommunication  of  ideas,  a  monotone  is  all 
that  is  necessary.  But  what  a  glorious  superabundance  of 
gift  in  the  octave-ranging,  palpitant  richness,  and  soul- 
expressiveness  of  the  human  voice.* 

*  Probably  as  ludicrous  a  thing  as  ever  happened  was  the  experience 
of  my  friend,  Professor  Roswell  Park,  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y.  A  man's  life  had 
been  saved  by  the  beautiful  surgical  skill  of  a.  successful  laryngectomy.  When 
health  had  been  restored,  my  friend  proposed  to  his  patient  the  insertion  of 
an  artificial  larynx,  so  that  vowel-tones,  or  true  voice  could  be  added  to  the 
whisper  that  necessarily  resulted  from  the  absence  of  the  vocal  cords.  This 
apparently  highly  desirable  thing  was  done,  but  the  tone,  of  course,  was  uni- 
form ;  there  was  no  change  of  pitch  possible  to  the  mechanical  larynx,  and 
expression,  modulation,  timbre, — everything  that  makes  voice  pleasant  and 


Il6      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

But  over  and  above  all  such  human  conceits  hovers  the 
absorbing  thought : — What  man  does  is  God's  doing,  be- 
cause man  is  His  work  and  is  Himself  at  work.  Whatever 
is  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  one  is  that  of  the  other,  and 
man  should  be  as  willing  to  acknowledge  the  symphony 
and  orchestra  to  be  the  labor  of  the  Divine  Artist,  as  that 
magnanimous  musician  is  glad  to  allow  the  honor  to  His 
dear  children,  in  whose  music  He  not  only  rejoices,  but  in 
which  He  is  theme,  harmony,  and  player  at  once.  "  He  is 
the  Singer  and  the  Song." 

Between  waves  of  a  few  thousand  a  second  up  to  those 
of  some  four  hundred  millions  of  millions  a  second  there 
is  a  blank  space  that  is  so  huge  in  extent  that  it  suggests  the 
possibility  of  a  million  orders  of  sensation,  each  as  different 
and  each  of  as  large  range  as  either  that  of  hearing  or  that 
of  seeing.  If  only  there  had  been  the  stimuli  !  If,  instead 
of  two  oceans,  we  lived  in  a  thousand,  each  of  different 
degrees  of  fluidity,  and  if  we  were  outfitted  with  a  sense- 
mechanism  for  each  as  beautiful  as  that  for  air-waves  and 
that  for  ether-waves !  Eternity  would  then  be  too  short  to 
exhaust  the  pleasures  of  sensation,  each  type  having  its  own 
world  of  opera  and  composition,  as  diverse  and  as  progres- 
sive as  that  of  music,  or  that  of  painting.  In  a  world,  the 
specific  gravity  of  which  is  different  from  our  own,  the 

more  than  useful  was  absent.  The  man  could  speak,  convey  ideas  perfectly,  but 
when  he  tried  to  give  emphasis,  mtanccs,  shadings,  diverse  meanings,  and 
especially  when  he  tried  to  express  emotion,  anger,  or  resentment,  there 
was  only  the  monotonous  drone  and  squeak  of  the  intolerable  machine. 
Nothing  could  control  the  convulsive  laughter  of  surgeon  and  assistants.  The 
poor  man's  indignation  sought  outlet  in  speech,  but  the  very  words  of  wrath 
were  turned  to  outrageous  absurdity  by  the  infernal  device.  In  a  spasm  of 
ebullient  rage  he  tore  the  mechanism  out  of  his  throat,  cursed  the  man  who 
had  saved  his  life,  and  is  probably  running  and  hoarsely  whispering  invec- 
tives at  him  still.  He  never  came  back. 


SEATSA  TION.  1 1 7 

atmosphere  of  a  different  density,  and  with  other  conditions 
of  life  varying  from  those  in  our  own  globe,  the  size,  appen- 
dages, and  conformation,  of  the  body  of  the  inhabitants 
would  necessarily  vary  largely  from  our  own  ;  but  it  is  in  the 
differences  of  possible  sensation  that  the  greatest  variations 
would  occur.  Should  such,  to  us,  new  worlds  of  possible 
sensation  exist  out  there,  we  would  never  understand  them, 
because  it  is  impossible  to  tell  another  what  a  sensation  is. 
Indeed,  in  our  sight  and  hearing,  extension  beyond  the 
limits  already  set  is  hardly  possible.  In  color-sensation 
how  we  desire  eyes  that  would  react  to  waves  above  and 
especially  octaves  below  our  present  confined  ability. 
There  are  the  waves,  steadily  pouring  upon  our  eyes,  but 
wholly  unutilized, — nay,  the  eye  has  even  to  shield  itself 
from  these  rejected  parts  of  the  spectrum  by  special 
devices.  The  entire  series  of  magnetic  and  electric  waves 
constantly  streaming  through  and  about  us  are  also  un- 
utilized, unless  the  suggestion  I  have  thrown  out  be  true 
that  the  Homing  Instinct  is  carried  out  by  means  of  a 
mechanism  responsive  to  the  magnetic  currents  of  the 
earth.  The  reason  for  this  neglect  to  devise  a  reacting 
sense-mechanism  to  these  waves,  is  because  of  their 
changeability,  the  inutility  of  the  function  to  the  develop- 
ing organism,  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  stimulus.  This 
will  be  made  more  apparent  later. 

There  are  many  facts  that  prove  that  the  development 
of  the  function  of  vision  has  been  extremely  difficult. 
The  function  is  not  only  dependent  upon,  but  it  consists 
in  a  retinal  reaction  to  fine  degrees  of  heat,  the  light-waves 
of  the  ether  being  translated  by  a  sensation  into  color, 
according  to  their  sizes  or  heat-energy. 

The  exclusion  from  vision  of  the  ultra-violet  and  the 
infra-red  rays  of  the  spectrum  is  because  of  their  relative 


IlS      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

weakness  and  inconstancy.  As  to  the  ultra-violet,  the 
insignificance  of  the  total  energy  of  these  rays  is  perceived 
by  noticing  the  tiny  curve  and  extent  of  activity  of  these 
undulations  figured  in  the  little  triangle  beyond  H  of  a 
normal  spectrum.  Not  only  is  the  energy  too  inconsider- 
able, as  compared  with  that  of  the  adjacent  red  space,  to 
produce  sufficient  organic  reaction  of  the  ocular  mechan- 
ism, but  the  varying  quantities  of  such  rays,  resulting 
from  the  ever-changing  remnants  left  over  after  the  ab- 
sorptions of  the  atmosphere  have  been  satisfied,  render 
constancy  of  stimulus  impossible,  and  the  eye  naturally 
fails  to  develop  response  to  such  stimuli,  or  it  is  forced  to 
exclude  them  from  the  retina,  because  they  are  so  weak 
and  capricious.  Moreover,  we  must  not  fail  to  recollect 
the  exaggerated  importance  and  mistaken  supposition  of 
extent  of  the  rays  of  this  part  of  the  spectrum,  naturally 
engendered  by  their  influence  in  photography.  A  line 
must  be  drawn  somewhere,  and  the  remarkable  fact  seems 
to  be  that  the  violet  rays  should  not  also  have  been  ex- 
cluded from  color-production.  The  limitation  of  the 
chromatic  scale  should  not  be  a  cause  of  critical  complaint, 
but  its  extension  is  rather  a  source  of  delighted  wonder. 

The  infra-red  rays  so  rich  in  the  total  amount  of  energy, 
and  so  magnificent  in  the  range  of  their  wave-lengths,  do 
not  produce  visual  results  because  though  three  fifths  of  the 
total  energy  of  the  spectrum  is  in  this  region,  it  is  spread 
over  a  space  six  times  as  great.  Now  it  is  apparent  that 
amplitude  of  range  beyond  a  certain  necessary  and  satis- 
factory amount,  would  be  of  no  advantage.  Extension  of 
the  visual  function  to  these  regions  would  imply  immense 
complications  of  the  ocular  and  cerebral  mechanism,  com- 
plications and  intricacies  that,  if  in  any  way  possible,  would 
hardly  give  any  considerable  advantage  to  their  possessor. 


SENSATION. 

In  the  next  place  we  must  note  that  this  great  stretch 
is  one  continuous  succession  of  peaks  and  valleys,  or  in 
other  words,  that  its  energies  are  not  constant  and  regu- 
lar. Cool  places  alternate  with  hot  places,  and  though 
the  shorter  wave  infra-red  peaks  are  as  high  as  some 
parts  of  the  visible  curve  upon  the  other  side,  they  are 
not  regularly  so,  and  during  a  fall  of  the  general  supply 
of  the  radiant  energy,  as  in  an  obscure  day,  or  in  the 
morning  or  evening,  these  valleys  would  drop  down  to  a 
level  where  their  maximum  of  energy  would  be  very  small 
or  even  nil.  And  this  fact  of  a  continual  pulsation  of  the 
general  amount  of  the  stimulus  must  be  borne  in  mind. 
It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  the  great  space  from  0.80  to 
0.90  contains  an  energy  as  high  as  that  between  0.40  and 
0.50.  Upon  this  last  side  of  the  curve  there  is  no  valley 
at  all,  whilst  just  within  A  we  have  a  tremendous  one  that 
with  diminished  general  illumination  would  make  a  break, 
sharp  and  decisive,  between  the  two  visible  portions. 
The  existence  of  this  deep  and  canon-like  chasm  at  A 
seems  to  me  highly  suggestive.  At  this  point  there  is 
the  boundary-line  of  visibility.  Did  this  cool  notch  not 
exist,  it  is  easily  conceivable  that  the  retina  might  have 
learned  to  react  to  the  stimulus  extending  so  far  as 
wave-length  0.95,  or  even  to  the  next  great  cool  space 
at  1.15,  had  there  likewise  been  no  such  fall  as  is  seen  at 
0.95.  But  the  great  ebb  and  flow  of  radiant  energy 
every  twenty-four  hours,  complicated  always,  and 
rendered  more  highly  inconstant  by  the  varying  con- 
ditions of  atmospheric  cloud  and  dust,  of  shade,  of  vege- 
tation or  hill,  of  longitude  and  equinox — all  these  sources 
of  variation  and  inconstancy  proved  to  the  hard-tasked  ocu- 
lar and  psychic  Mechanician  that  He  could  rely  with  con- 
fidence only  on  that  part  of  the  spectrum,  or  upon  those 


I2O     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

wave-lengths  that  under  all  conditions  were  strongest  and 
most  persistent.  His  creatures  had  to  gain  the  best  inti- 
mations possible  of  external  objects  during  foggy  and 
cloudy  days,  in  twilight,  moonlight,  nay,  even  by  star- 
light, and  at  these  times  the  reduction  or  even  the  extinc- 
tion of  energy  in  the  infra-red  regions  would  be  too  great 
or  too  frequent  to  give  such  indications.  Hence  the 
necessity  of  ignoring  them. 

Professor  Rowland  has  ruled  160,000  lines  to  the  inch  in 
his  concave  gratings.  The  finest  slit  admitting  a  beam  of 
light  to  such  a  grating  is  one  fifth  of  a  millimeter  wide, 
yet  this  covers  more  than  the  distance  between  the  two  D 
lines,  and  in  this  space  there  are  at  least  a  dozen  alter- 
nations between  brightness  and  extinction.  The  astound- 
ing sensitiveness  of  the  bolometer  is  far  from  discerning 
the  absolutely  homogeneous  ray.  It  has  been  shown 
(by  Nichols,  Am.  Jour.  Set.,  Oct.,  '84.)  that  the  retina 
responds  to  an  exposure  to  rays  (from  the  pigments  of  a 
Maxwell-disk)  lasting  only  0.00144  of  a  second.  This  was 
the  time  for  yellow,  and  at  the  brightest  of  three  degrees 
of  illumination.  For  red  the  figures  were  0.00209,  for 
violet,  0.00286.  Experiments  with  spectra  of  the  solar 
radiation  are  still  more  remarkable.  B.  O.  Pierce,  Jr., 
(Am.  Jour.  Sci.,  '83)  found  that  the  largest  displacement 
needed  by  any  observer  corresponded  to  a  difference  in 
wave-length  of  about  0.000005  mmi  tne  smallest  to  a 
wave-length  of  about  0.0000005  mm.  In  all  these  cases, 
the  extreme  refinement  of  response  is  in  yellow — precisely 
where  the  stimulus  is  strongest,  most  invariable,  and  most 
persistent.  The  most  trained  imagination  can  catch  only 
the  most  impotent  and  inadequate  fancies  and  glimpses  of 
the  marvellous  sensitiveness  of  the  retinal  mechanism  that 
can  react  to  stimuli  represented  by  the  foregoing  figures. 


SENS  A  TION.  1 2 1 

Sunlight,  we  are  told,  is  composed  of  the  following 
parts  : 

Red 54 

Orange-red 140 

Orange 80 

Orange-yellow 114 

Yellow 54 

Greenish-yellow 206 

Yellowish  -green 121 

Green  and  blue-green 134 

Cyan-blue 32 

Cyan 40 

Ultramarine  and  blue-violet 20 

Violet 5 

IOOO 

Condensing  the  intermediates  with  the  principals  we 
have 

Red  colors 194 

Golden  colors 454 

Green  colors 255 

Blue  colors 97 

IOOO 

If  we  ask  what  great  color-classes  of  visible  objects  have 
most  occupied  man's  eye  and  mind  in  all  past  history,  the 
first  in  overwhelming  importance  is  light  and  fire  ;  the 
second,  the  world  of  vegetation  ;  the  third,  blood,  as  the 
concrete  representation  of  war,  struggle,  and  superstitious 
symbol ;  the  fourth,  the  sky  above  with  its  reflection  in 
the  waters  of  the  earth.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name 
another  class,  for  whatever  other  colors  the  world  may 
have  presented  to  the  eye  of  historic  man,  they  must 
have  been  mixtures  of  these,  or  unimportant  exceptions 
that  have  left  only  a  small  and  inconsiderable  organic  re- 


122      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

sponse  in  the  psychic  mechanism.  The  ordinary  suffused 
daylight,  even  of  a  clear  day,  is  slightly  yellowish,  and  in 
almost  all  degrees  of  obscuration  of  the  sun,  the  more 
refrangible  rays  being  cut  off,  the  indifference-point  of  the 
spectrum  is  sent  farther  down  into  the  yellow  band. 
:  Whether  from  a  greater  turbidity  of  the  atmosphere,  or 
from  an  increase  in  thickness  of  the  several-mile-deep 
dust-shell  always  present  over  the  earth,  or  from  the 
morning  and  evening  obliquity  of  the  sun's  rays,  much  of 
the  day  of  average  humanity  has  been  more  yellowish 
than  was  perhaps  mistrusted.  This,  it  is  probable,  was 
more  pronouncedly  the  case  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the 
world's  life.  Moreover,  the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the 
sun  have  always  flooded  the  earth  for  one  or  two  hours 
each  day  with  a  glory  of  orange  or  of  golden  radiance. 
It  is  also  certain  that  our  earthly  fires  are  of  a  ruddy 
golden  or  yellowish  hue,  and  the  student  of  mythology 
and  of  early  religions  knows  well  enough  the  part  that 
fire  has  played  as  a  representative  of  the  unseen  divine 
life,  or  as  an  analogue  of  the  recurrent  changes  of  the 
lights  of  the  sky  by  day  or  by  night.  "  Pyrolatry,"  says 
a  life-long  student  and  historian  of  ethnic  religions,  "is 
common  to  all  religions."  "  Through  the  whole  history  of 
Aryan  faith  runs  the  fire-symbolism  of  Mithra."  Quotation 
from  a  thousand  sources  could  be  added,  all  of  the  same 
import.  We  all  know  the  beautiful  myth  of  Prometheus 
and  the  stolen  fire.  Ever  since  man's  dawning  intelligence 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  mystery  of  light,  of  the  wonder  of 
the  strange  lurid  glow  of  the  sun  at  eventide — nay,  even 
back  to  the  time  when,  by  its  aid,  he  cooked  the  flesh  of 
the  animal  whose  blood  he  had  shed,  the  wonder  of  fire 
was  daily  and  hourly  before  his  eyes.  Further  reason  for 
including  the  daylight,  the  sunshine,  and  the  fire-hues 


SENSATION.  123 

under  the  general  term  golden,  comes  from  the  symbolism 
of  gold  itself,  which,  in  all  ancient  faiths,  as  well  as  in 
the  instinctive  feeling  of  the  modern  artist  and  poet,  is 
the  representative  metal  and  color  of  the  divine  glory  and 
halo. 

To  this  consensus  of  reasons  might  be  added  the  com- 
parative absence  of  whites  in  nature.  Clouds  are  some- 
times a  dull  or  grayish-white,  and  snows,  however  consid- 
erable in  some  countries,  are  certainly  the  world  over,  a 
small  and  short-lived  covering  of  the  earth's  surface. 
Wherever  white  sunlight  falls  on  land  or  tree  or  rock,  it  is 
always  reduced  to  colors  by  the  unequal  absorption  and 
reflection  following  ;  these  colored  reflections  are  the  eye's 
customary  stimuli.  When  sunlight  falls  on  the  sea,  only 
a  small  portion  of  the  surface  reflects  white  back  to  the 
few  eyes  there  or  thereabouts.  So  that  as  a  fact  white 
sunlight  is  generally  reduced  to  yellowish  tints,  or  to 
other  shades  before  it  reaches  the  eye.  Where  this  is 
not  the  case,  the  rays  would  be  too  powerful,  and  unpleas- 
ant effects  upon  the  eye  would  be  certain. 

The  closeness  of  relationship  between  white  light  and 
golden  light  is  also  shown  by  the  ease  with  which  spec- 
tral yellow,  by  increase  of  illumination,  passes  over  into 
white,  being,  as  it  is,  the  nearest  of  all  colors  to  the  lumi- 
nous intensity  of  that  compound.  Consequently  a  comple- 
mentary color  of  the  lower  kinetic  value  is  all  that  is 
required  to  quickly  heighten  it  into  the  white  to  which 
it  is  so  closely  allied. 

The  proportion  of  the  spectral  golden  rays,  454,  or 
nearly  half  of  the  whole,  represents  the  overwhelming 
part  the  diffused  lights  of  day  and  those  of  fire  have 
played  in  the  world's  history.  The  unity  of  character 
running  through  this  vast  space  of  the  spectrum,  testifies 


124      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

to  the  unity  of  the  cause,  and  to  its  power  both  physically 
and  mentally. 

The  vegetable  world1 — whose  greens  take  up  the  next 
greatest  portion  of  the  spectral  rays — representing  one 
fourth  of  the  whole — is  so  plainly  the  origin  of  the  green 
band  of  the  spectrum  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  de- 
tail concerning  it.  When  eyes  appeared,  next  after  the 
golden  light  of  day,  they  would  certainly  fall  upon  some 
of  earth's  verdure,  and  except  to  the  city-man,  the  propor- 
tion holds  up  to  the  present  time.  Green  is  philologically 
the  growing  thing,  and  grass  or  tree  covers  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

Red  occupies  the  next  lower  degree  in  the  proportion 
of  the  spectral  waves.  The  crimson  of  the  fruit  man  ate, 
or  of  the  wine  he  drank  ;  the  deeper  orange  hues  of  the 
flame-points  or  embers  of  his  hearth-fire;  the  autumnal 
red  of  the  forest  trees,  or  the  expansive  glory  of  an  occa- 
sional scarlet  sunset,  would  not,  all  combined,  account  for 
the  proportion  of  spectrum-space  occupied,  and  these 
things  are  infinitely  far  from  explaining  the  intense  and 
distinctive  character  of  the  subjective  sensation  of  spec- 
tral red.  I  believe  that  it  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  role  that  war  and  bloodshed,  blood-sacrament  and 
blood-rites,  have  acted  in  the  history  of  the  race  from 
man's  egress  out  of  animalism  and  progress  to  nineteenth- 
century  militarism.  "  The  blood  is  the  life."  In  a  curi- 
ous and  deeply  instructive  book,  The  Blood  Covenant 
(Trumbull),  one  learns  something  of  the  influence  of 
the  vision  of  blood-shedding  in  the  early  world.  It 
is  an  instructive,  though  a  ghastly  picture,  that,  despite 
the  author's  sympathy  and  sanction,  makes  one  shud- 
der. Strange  insights,  these,  into  human  nature,  that 
we  gain  in  reading  of  the  blood-drinking,  blood-bathing, 


SENSATION.  125 

blood-ransoming,  blood-unions,  blood-compacts  and  friend- 
ships, blood-sacrifices,  and  blood-suppers,  blood-burials, 
blood-cures  and  sprinklings,  bloody  hands  and  uplifted 
arms,  blood-transfusions,  human  sacrifices  and  cannibal- 
isms, bloody  passovers,  and  blood  atonements.  What 
an  echo,  too,  of  long-passed  ages  when  bloodshed  was  no 
mimicry.  The  bloody  idea  is  certainly  "  nail'd  wi'  scrip- 
tur'." 

But  this  it  may  be  said  is  all  legend  and  myth.  Yet 
mythogenesis  is  organogenesis  :  when  beliefs  were  making, 
organic  structures  were  hardening  and  shaping,  and  more- 
over when  authentic  history  begins,  it  writes  of  the  sword 
and  red-handed  death  ;  the  record  rolls  on  with  the  tired 
centuries,  depicting  one  monotonous  tale  of  sanguinary 
strife.  "  War  is  the  matter  that  fills  all  history,"  says  a 
great  historian.  One  million  nine  hundred  and  forty-eight 
thousand  lives  lost  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  in  Euro- 
pean battles,  is  the  last  record,  with  Europe  a  huge  camp 
to-day. 

The  proportion  of  spectral  blue  is  small  in  extent  and 
weak  in  power,  and  it  has  a  character  of  distance  and  of 
impersonality  exactly  corresponding  to  the  sources  whence 
this  color  has  reached  the  eye.  The  sky  is  above,  but 
man's  eyes  are  seldom  raised  to  it.  At  the  horizon  it 
often  fades  to  the  violet  in  which  the  spectrum  likewise 
passes  out  of  sight. 

Certain  colors  are  called  primary  or  elementary,  because 
they  have  been  derived  from  these  great  divisions  of  nat- 
ural objects  that  have  been  reviewed.  They  have  been 
the  uninterrupted  stimuli  of  the  visual  function  since  the 
brain  sent  its  retinal  servant  out  to  the  body's  surface  to 
see  by  its  aid.  Some,  if  we  may  so  speak,  are  more  "ele- 
mentary "  than  others,  in  the  sense  that  some  stimuli  have 


126      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

» 

been  either  more  prevalent,  more  powerful,  or  more  inter- 
esting than  others.  This  is  overwhelmingly  so  of  red  and 
gold.  In  Swinburne's  Poems  and  Ballads,  Mr.  Grant 
Allen  found  the  red  epithets  numbered  159,  the  gold  143, 
the  green  86,  and  the  blue  25.  In  Tennyson's  Princess 
the  respective  numbers  were  20,  28,  5,  I  ;  and  it  was  so  in 
other  cases. 

A  "  color"  of  the  spectrum  occupies  just  that  amount 
of  space,  or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  waves  of  more  or 
less  extended  differences  of  length  are  perceived  as  a 
single  color,  just  as  the  bulk  of  the  waves  from  each  of 
these  classes  of  objects  have  been  most  uniformly  and 
persistently  reflected  into  the  eye  during  the  growth  of 
the  race.  Nature  has  acted  upon  the  organism  in  these 
continuous  ways,  and  the  cerebral  'products  are  the  spec- 
tral colors,  in  the  proportions  and  with  the  characteristics 
we  find  appearing  in  consciousness.  The  largest  and  most 
persistent  stimulus  has  been  that  of  the  gold  rays — the 
varied  shades  of  the  diffused  light  of  day,  or  the  ever 
present  mystery  of  fire.  These  have  been  poured  in  pro- 
fusion into  all  eyes,  comprising  nearly  one  half  of  their 
total  stimulus,  while  the  green  rays  make  up  a  fourth,  the 
red  less  than  a  fourth,  and  the  blue  a  still  more  limited 
amount. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  objective  luminous 
power  follows  the  same  law,  and  is  not  caused,  as  we 
might  a  priori  suppose,  by  the  wave-length.  According 
to  the  measurements  of  Mac£  and  Nikati,  the  following 
are  the  relative  luminous  powers  of  the  wave-systems  cor- 
responding to  the  wave-length,  the  highest  power  corre- 
sponding to  wave-length  569  JLI  (yellow)  taken  as  unity : 
681  656  641  613  589  569  550  534  527  520  507 

0.015  •°^°  -111  *252  -7^8  i.ooo  .954  .512  .400  .314  .128 


SENSATION.  127 

In  order  to  reach  the  same  result  of  visual  acuity,  as  in 
the  569  wave-length  rays,  the  quantity  of  light  of  red  had 
to  be  increased  sixty-six  times,  of  green  three  times,  of 
blue  eighteen  times,  of  extreme  violet  5,460  times. 

The  explanation  of  these  figures  will  be  found  to  lie  in 
the  physiology  of  the  retina.  The  stronger  or  longer  waves 
do  not,  as  we  see,  produce  the  most  powerful  effect ;  indeed 
the  luminous  intensities  have  no  relations  with  refrangi- 
bility,  but  seem  to  depend  on  facts  of  another  order,  or 
the  utilization  of  the  residue  of  rays  left  over  after  the 
absorptions  of  natural  bodies  have  been  satisfied.  The 
greater  the  wave-length  the  more  complete  the,  absorp- 
tion, until  the  line  of  the  descending  curve  dips  pretty 
low  down  in  red  or  orange,  when  the  residue  becomes 
so  great  that  the  light-curve  takes  its  swift  rise,  to  fall 
gradually  from  its  crest  in  D  J  E,  to  the  extreme  end 
of  the  visible  spectrum,  where  the  dispersive  forces  of 
atmospheric  refraction  allow  few  of  the  more  refrangible 
rays  to  pass  to  the  eye.  So  the  retina  has  learned  to 
react,  not  to  the  most  powerful,  or  to  the  finest,  but  to  the 
most  continuous  and  steady  stimuli.  Its  response,  there- 
fore, is  more  perfect  to  the  gold  rays,  next  to  the  green, 
lastly  to  the  red,  and  to  the  blue,  as  Mace  and  Nikati 
have  found. 

But  there  has  been  a  great  failure  to  differentiate  the  ob- 
jective from  the  subjective  intensity.  Confounding  these 
wholly  different  phases  has  resulted  in  the  non  sequitur 
of  Magnus  and  Gladstone,  who  think  red  was  the  first  of 
the  colors  historically  developed.  Color  being  a  creation 
of  the  mind,  and  after  a  double  transmutation  of  forces, 
it  follows  that  its  subjective  character  may  in  part  be  in- 
dependent of  objective  causes,  or  of  direct  stimulation,— 
may  be  a  complex  whose  elements  are  by  no  means  all 


128      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

gained  through  the  retina  or  the  visual  mechanism.  A 
thousand  facts  prove  that  of  all  the  senses  vision  is  the 
most  free  from  bonds  of  logical  and  necessary  connection 
with  the  primary  sources  of  stimulation.  No  fact  is  more 
strikingly  characteristic  of  this  law  than  these  differences 
between  the  objective  and  the  subjective  intensities  of 
colors.  As  we  have  just  seen,  the  order  of  the  former  is  the 
highest  in  gold,  falling  then  to  green,  to  red,  and  finally 
to  blue ;  the  order  of  the  subjective  intensity  is  first  red, 
then  golden,  then  green,  and  lastly  blue ;  and  precisely 
this  order  tallies  with  that  of  the  vital  and  personal  con- 
nection with  man's  life  of  the  four  classes  of  natural 
objects  we  have  named.  The  mordant  acids  of  life's 
needs  and  passions  have  eaten  these  tones  deeply  or  less 
deeply  into  man's  brain,  according  as  they  have  in  varying 
degrees  been  associated  with  his  miseries  and  gratifications. 
Only  on  this  principle  can  the  vivid  and  powerful  effect 
of  red  be  explained.  Private  and  public  bloodshed, 
social  and  religious  blood  covenants,  all  of  which  have 
always  been  bound  up  with  every  day  of  humanity's  ad- 
vance,— these  have  bitten  into  his  being  an  intensity  of 
response  unapproached  by  all  other  chromatic  stimuli. 
In  the  language  of  physiological  psychology,  this  fact 
might,  perhaps,  be  expressed  as  the  demand  for  more 
numerous  connections  with  other  cortical  centers,  corre- 
sponding to  the  variety  of  interest  the  stimulus  excites 
in  them,  and  the  power  required  in  co-ordinating  the 
multitudinous  waves  of  emotion  called  forth. 

The  most  valuable  thing  to  a  man  is,  of  course,  his  life, 
symbolized  forever,  in  fact  and  in  covenant,  in  rite  and  in 
ceremony,  by  his  blood.  Next  to  this  comes  the  light  of 
day  and  of  fire,  which  he  has  always  represented  to  his 
mind,  as  it  has  been  to  his  eye,  of  a  golden  hue,  under 


SENSATION.  I2Q 

which  term  may  be  accurately  grouped  the  changing  effects 
of  the  ruddy  orange,  or  the  yellowish  whites  of  light  and 
of  fire. 

Among  earth's  vegetation  man  has,  of  course,  built  his 
home  ;  but  there  is  in  the  subjective  green  a  lack  of  power 
and  intensity  exactly  corresponding  to  the  nature  of  our 
impersonal  and  semi-independent  relations  to  the  meek 
verdure  and  growing  things  about  us.  In  blue  these 
qualities  are  exaggerated  into  the  feeling  of  distance, 
coldness,  and  elevation,  derived,  of  course,  from  the  far- 
away mystery  of  the  sky  and  sea. 

The  intermediate  colors  of  the  spectrum  should  be 
considered  for  a  moment.  The  fact  of  their  existence  is 
almost  forgotten  by  color  students.  This  neglect  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  when  we  observe  their  amazing 
extent.  While  each  pure  "  primary  "  color  comprises  from 
forty  to  eighty  parts,  we  find  the  mixed  intermediates 
stretching  out  to  140  between  orange  and  red,  to  1 14  be- 
tween orange  and  yellow,  and  to  327  between  yellow  and 
green.  Strictly  speaking,  these  are  just  as  "  primary  "  as 
the  other  shades  we  call  red,  or  yellow,  or  green.  The 
whole  nomenclature  is  relative,  a  mere  thing  of  custom  or 
arbitrariness.  If  simple  spectral  space  occupied,  or,  if 
the  proportions  these  intermediates  bear  to  the  whole 
number  of  rays,  were  decisive,  the  small  spaces  of  the 
purer  colors  would  serve  as  the  unnamed  delimiting  lines 
for  the  other  and  larger  stretches  and  quantities.  The 
extent  of  these  spaces  shows  us  how  differing  nature's 
"  colors  "  are  from  those  of  the  mind,  or  rather,  what  re- 
ceptacles and  constructions  the  mind  puts  upon  the  color- 
intimations  or  wave-hints  of  nature.  The  "  colors  "  of  the 
inorganic  world  are  always  broken  and  mixed  ;  the  spec- 
trum gives  us  homogeneous  wave-systems,  sorted  out  of 


130     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

the  compound,  and  arranged  seriatim.  The  prism  brings 
order  out  of  chaos,  whilst  for  itself  the  mind  still  further 
idealizes  and  reconstructs  another  world  out  of  the  spec- 
trum, by  ignoring  the  mixed  intermediates,  and  empha- 
sizing the  small  spaces  more  pleasing  to  it.  But,  keeping 
close  to  nature,  we  must  ask  concerning  the  significance 
of  the  extensiveness  of  these  spaces,  and  this  can  only  lie 
in  the  fact  that  external  colors  are  not  saturated  (from 
homogeneous  wave-systems  of  maximum  strength)  but  are 
always  from  mixed  wave-systems,  culminating  in  a  higher 
average  of  those  of  one  of  the  four  primary  colors  in  each 
of  the  four  classes  of  phenomena  mentioned.  The  ocean- 
swell  may  be  made  up  of  many  lesser  crests  and  troughs, 
but  there  is  always  one  point  where  the  general  variations 
reach  their  maximum,  and  this  would  correspond  to  the 
narrow  limits  of  the  pure  color.  But  between  these  crests 
are  large  regions  of  indeterminate  mixture.  Between  the 
pure  hues  of  the  deep  autumn  reds  and  the  paler  yellows, 
and  beyond  the  rapid  instants  of  ruddy  flames  and  setting 
suns,  are  the  multitudes  of  the  ever  changing  tints  of 
brighter  glows,  which  account  for  the  140  parts  between 
spectral  red  and  orange.  In  a  like  manner  we  perceive 
the  rationale  of  the  114  parts  between  orange  and  yellow, 
whilst  the  protean  changes  and  mixtures  of  the  ever  vary- 
ing light  playing  amongst  the  myriad-tinted  shadows  of 
the  infinite  variety  of  vegetable  forms,  produce  the 
enormous  interspace  represented  by  the  327  inter- 
mediate parts  between  the  yellow  and  the  green  of  the 
spectrum. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  endeavor  has  been  to  institute 
a  correspondence  between  luminous  stimuli  from  the  nat- 
ural world,  and  the  chromatic  effects  of  the  spectrum's 
analysis  upon  the  mind.  Our  color-sense  must  be  the 


SENSATION.  I3T 

organism's  response  and  reaction  under  stimulus  ;  in  a 
word,  it  must  be  investigated  by  the  methods  of  study 
that  in  all  other  departments  of  biology  science  has  taught 
us  to  use  with  such  brilliant  results.  The  hand  of  a  man, 
the  wing  of  a  bat,  the  dog's  fore-foot,  and  the  horse's  fore- 
leg, the  bird's  wing,  and  the  seal's  paddle, — these  are  all 
modifications  or  variations  of  one  fundamental  structure, 
according  to  the  work  to  be  done,  and  in  response  to  the 
peculiar  stimulus  ;  just  so  the  cerebral  products  of  multi- 
form color-stimuli  have  left  their  psychical  homologues  in 
our  own  complex  color-sense. 

In  accordance  with  this  conception  of  the  origins  of 
our  color-sense,  there  should  be  a  natural  association  and 
symbolism  of  the  different  colors  with  the  great  classes  of 
our  emotional  states.  If  man's  mind  is  the  concrete  result 
of  cycles  of  permanent  reaction  between  organism  and 
environment,  then  his  visual  sense  must  find  its  ultimate 
explanation  in  the  same  process,  and,  like  it,  look  for- 
ward to  extension  and  perfection  on  the  same  lines  as  its 
development  has  followed  in  the  past.  Now  upon  look- 
ing within,  it  is  not  a  little  startling  to  find  the  great 
divisions  of  our  psychical  nature  corresponding  with  the 
great  associations  and  divisions  of  our  color-sense.  It 
would  be  still  more  striking  if  we  were  not  partially  aware 
of  the  part  that  color  has  played  in  history  and  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mind.  All  objective  existences  are  per- 
haps more  vividly  than  in  any  other  way  represented  to 
the  imagination  as  colored  things,  and  their  associations 
with  the  woes  and  joys  of  life  point  to  no  fanciful  sym- 
bolism, but  one  that  is  quite  as  real  and  as  vital  as  the 
emotions  whence  he  draws  his  mental  life.  Classifying 
the  directions  and  methods  of  mental  activities,  we  find 
them  to  fall  naturally  into  four  classes : 


132      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

1.  Those  of  the  passions, — the  emotions  pertaining  to 
the  sensual  life. 

2.  Those  of  the  intellect  or  reason. 

3.  Those  of  utility  and  labor. 

4.  Those  of  the  spiritual,  moral,  and  religious  nature. 

These  we  find  to  correspond  in  an  exact  and  specifi- 
cally real  sense  to  the  four  types  of  the  chief  colors 
previously  set  forth.  Blood  is  the  life, the  sensual,  physio- 
logical life, — the  nearest,  most  precious,  and  vivid  of  all 
things  or  thoughts ;  golden  light  is  next  in  its  necessity 
and  nearness  to  our  daily  life ;  of  green  we  are  somewhat 
more  independent ;  while  blue  is  far  away  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  our  earthly  cares  and  wants. 

The  symbolisms  of  red  are,  therefore,  perforce,  those 
of  the  two  great  factors  of  history — war  and  love.  The 
passions  that  stir  the  blood  and  heart  of  men  to  action, 
the  emotions  of  honor,  vengeance,  valor,  love,  friendship, 
protection,  and  the  rest, — these  are  the  fitting  correspond- 
encies of  the  rigorous  challenge  of  red. 

In  the  same  definite  way  the  symbols  of  golden  light 
as  aptly  and  restrictedly  answer  to  the  light  of  reason  and 
of  intellect  which,  flowing  over  and  through  all  the  world's 
ways,  alone  promises  that  clearness  of  vision  by  which  we 
can  walk  in  the  labyrinthine  maze  of  crowding  passions, 
necessities,  and  duties. 

But  it  is  among  earth's  verdure  that  man's  daily  life  is 
cast,  and  where  he  builds  his  home.  This  with  its  culti- 
vation and  shade,  its  fruitage  and  its  various  sustenance, 
gives  him  occupation,  rest,  food,  and  contentment.  So  in 
our  psychological  analogies,  green  may  stand  as  the  every- 
day color  of  labor,  of  use,  of  homerlife,  of  peace,  and  rest. 

Lastly,  how  perfectly  blue  represents  the  spiritual  life 
of  religion,  of  aspiration,  and  of  morality.  The  impene- 


SENSATION.  133 

( 

trable  deeps  of  the  arching  sky  may  for  a  time  be  over- 
cast by  the  passing  clouds  of  chance  and  change,  but  the 
changeless  blue  persists,  still  there  by  day  or  by  night, 
ever  impersonal,  and  ever  unattainable. 

The  entire  history  of  the  eye  in  various  animals  shows 
plainly  the  tentative,  groping  experimentation  of  Biolo- 
gos,  at  one  time  conquered  or  half-conquered  by  a  diffi- 
culty, always  being  changed  and  modified  to  meet  emer- 
gencies, to  preserve  and  to  carry  to  perfection  an  organ 
without  which  all  final  causes  and  all  ultimate  purposes 
would  be  prevented  of  realization.  Particularly  sugges- 
tive is  the  square  "  about  face  "  in  changing  the  direction 
of  the  ocular  rods  and  cones :  in  the  reptilian  eye  they 
point  toward  the  entering  light ;  in  the  mammalian  eye 
they  point  away  from  it.  It  seems  hard  to  account  for 
this,  except  it  be  on  the  supposition  of  the  impossibility 
of  making  the  retinal  intermediate  of  the  color-sensation 
as  perfect  as  required,  when  the  extraordinarily  delicate 
molecular  vibrations  constituting  its  chief  mechanism 
were  located  so  far  away  from  the  deep-bed  of  capillaries 
of  the  chorioid.  In  the  crude  color-sense  of  the  colder- 
blooded  and  inferior  types  of  animals  the  molecular  func- 
tion could  be  carried  on  without  the  higher  degree  and 
the  greater  uniformity  of  heat  required  by  the  mammal 
and  especially  by  man.  The  natural  plan  would  certainly 
be  that  that  was  first  adopted,  but,  according  to  the 
changed  plan,  the  optic-nerve  fibers  must  be  divested  of 
the  white  substance  of  Schwann,  and  yet  preserve  their 
complete  insularity.  Something  over  800,000  of  them, 
therefore,  together  with  all  the  other  retinal  layers,  must 
be  made  so  faultlessly  transparent  as  not  to  rob  the  enter- 
ing and  traversing  light  of  any  of  its  power  or  qualities. 
A  profound  necessity  must  have  dictated  this  enormous 


134     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

labor,  and  that  necessity  I  can  imagine  none  other  than 
that  I  have  given.  The  fact  that  in  death  by  starvation 
every  particle  of  fat  in  the  body  is  autodigested  except 
that  cushioning  the  eyeball  within  the  orbit,  also  points 
most  certainly  both  to  the  value  of  the  eye  to  the  organ- 
ism, and  to  that  preservation  of  the  necessary  degree  and 
uniformity  of  warmth  upon  which  our  visual  function 
depends. 

Another  evidence  of  the  experimental  stage  and  of  the 
difficulty  is  the  median  or  pineal  eye  of  some  lizards  and 
reptiles.  No  longer  functional  it  still  sometimes  exists 
more  or  less  atrophied  beneath  the  scales  of  the  forehead. 
In  the  success  and  progress  of  development  the  Ever- 
Ingenious  and  Astute  found  that  three  eyes  were  not 
necessary,  and  so  dispensed  with  one,  or  possibly  turned 
the  cerebral  part  of  it  to  use  in  focalizing  or  utilizing 
magnetic  currents  for  homing  purposes.* 

Here  may  also  be  noted  that  other  great  difficulty  of 
the  nutrition  of  highly  complex  and  vastly  delicate  struc- 
tures without  the  direct  feeding  of  blood.  Cornea,  cap- 
sules, lens,  and  vitreous,  together  with  a  million  of  reti- 
nal nerve-threads  and  end-organs  have  to  be  nourished 
by  lymph.  Blood-corpuscles  are  necessarily  colored,  and, 
if  present,  would  render  any  structure  untransparent. 
Moreover,  the  nutrition  and  function  of  many  of  these 
structures  are  effected  without  nerve-control  or  aid.  Bi- 
ologos  has  to  take  charge  of  each  cell  again  and  dispense 

*  The  explanation  of  the  homing  instinct  by  sight  or  smell  is  utterly  dis- 
proved. Dogs  chloroformed  and  taken  hundreds  of  miles  in  round-about 
ways  return  cross-country  straight  home.  Pigeons  taken  in  covered  baskets 
hundreds  of  miles  into  a  new  country  return  as  direct.  I  have  heard  of  one 
man  with  a  tumor  of  the  pineal  gland  who  showed  in  life  the  most  morbid 
restlessness  and  desire  to  walk  all  the  time.  One  swallow,  of  course,  does 
not  make  a  summer. 


SENSATION.  135 

with  adventitious  helps  and  the  subordinate  automa- 
tonizations  of  government. 

The  fact  is  undoubtedly  connected  with  the  formation 
of  senile  cataract  and  is  the  sole  cause  of  presbyopia,  that 
frightful  anomaly  of  the  organism,  in  which  a  most  im- 
portant function  fails  when  life  is  only  half  lived. 

The  important  fact  is  also  to  be  considered  that  all  these 
tremendous  difficulties  and  labors  are  by  no  means  yet 
surmounted.  Possibly  greater  are  yet  to  come.  Every 
other  organ  and  function  of  the  body,  relatively  speaking, 
shows  completion  and  perfection,  but  civilization  is  now 
bringing  problems  to  the  ocular  divinity,  and  likewise  to 
the  ophthalmologist,  of  the  greatest  complexity  and  dan- 
ger. The  chief  of  these  arise  from  the  fact  that,  far  more 
than  any  other  function,  that  of  vision  is  most  important, 
most  exercised,  most  bound  up  with  every  other  act  and 
with  every  other  cerebral  center  and  function.  Consider- 
ing the  enormous  delicacy  of  the  forces  utilized  and  the 
corresponding  refinements  and  subtilties  of  the  mechan- 
ism, we  are  struck  with  the  fact,  first,  that  civilization 
infinitely  multiplies  the  mere  physiological  labor  of  the 
organs  of  vision  by  the  simple  increase  that  follows 
urban  life,  printing,  writing,  commercialism,  handiwork, 
art-work,  mechanics,  and  science. 

But  the  chief  relevant  point  pertains  to  the  salient  char- 
acteristic of  all  this  increased  ocular  labor;  its  execution 
at  what  the  oculists  call  near-range.  The  preponderant 
amount  of  vision  in  all  animals  and  in  uncivilized  man  was 
of  distant  objects — I  mean  objects  beyond  sixteen  inches 
from  the  eye.  The  ability  to  accurately  discern  objects 
within  this  distance  ("  accommodation  ")  was  a  temporary 
and  comparatively  unimportant  function,  and  its  organ 
was  therefore  one  fitted  for  temporary  use.  Distant  vision 


136      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

was  the  standard,  and  even  now  that  is  performed  by  the 
normal  eye  at  perfect  rest.  Anything  nearer  than  the  ho- 
rizon is  by  such  an  eye  seen  by  means  of  the  innervation 
and  contraction  of  a  delicate  little  sphincter  muscle  acting 
in  a  peculiarly  "  make-shift,"  anomalous,  almost  awkward, 
manner.  All  animals  and  savages  are  habitually,  and  all 
normal  civilized  children  are  congenitally,  "  far-sighted," 
or  hypermetropic.  But  lo !  within  a  century,  after  mil- 
lions of  years  of  preparation  of  the  eye  for  a  specific 
function,  here  at  a  bound  comes  civilization,  absolutely 
reversing  the  function  of  developmental  history,  and  de- 
manding that  the  standard  and  habitual  vision  shall  be 
within  a  foot  or  little  more,  and  that  the  distant  vision  shall 
be  exceptional.  Moreover,  it  demands  that  both  distant 
and  near  vision  shall  be  equally  perfect  vision.  We  are 
witnesses  of  the  attempt  to  develop  a  new  muscle  in  order 
to  meet  this  emergency, — the  Mu'ller  Ring  muscle  in 
hyperopes — acting  in  an  entirely  different  manner  from 
the  ciliary  muscle,  but  to  the  same  end  and  complementing 
its  insufficiency.  If  the  suddenness  and,  as  one  may  say, 
the  virulence  of  the  on-coming  of  civilization  had  not  been 
so  great,  and  if  an  artificial  help  had  not  been  at  hand, 
the  attempt  would  probably  be  successful.  This  may  now 
be  doubted.  But  happily  with  the  hurt,  in  the  other  hand 
civilization  brings  the  healing,  and  though  spectacles  are  a 
"  poor  excuse  "  they  must  be  used  by  civilization's  servants 
a  thousand  times  more  than  in  the  past  or  present.  The 
eyeball  is  a  soft  rubber-ball-like  structure,  any  slightest 
departure  of  which,  caused  by  many  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances, from  the  most  ideal  and  accurate  shape — in 
length  (myopia)  shortness  (hyperopia),  or  curvature  (astig- 
matism), at  once  results  in  dangerous  imperfections  of  vi- 
sion, and  disease  of  itself,  of  adjacent,  or  of  distant  organs. 


SENSATION.  137 

To  such  facts  must  be  added  others  that  are  noteworthy, 
e.  g.,  that  the  position  of  the  eyes  must  be  in  the  most 
exposed  part  of  the  organism  ;  that, by  the  necessity  of  their 
free  motility,  they  must  be  in  a  condition  of  semi-detach- 
ment from  it ;  and  that,  by  the  necessity  of  quick  directa- 
bleness  toward  different  points  of  the  compass,  they  must 
be  moved  by  twelve  tiny  muscles  all  in  perfect  balance 
and  counterbalance.  The  least  inco-ordination  in  power 
or  in  function  of  these  muscles,  may  at  once  breed  trouble. 
One  could  go  on  indefinitely  detailing  the  dangers,  the 
difficulties,  and  the  delicacies  of  this  organ  and  of  its  Ar- 
tificer. At  the  risk  of  wearying  the  reader  I  shall  further 
mention  but  two  :  The  usual  reflex  nerve  action  from  an 
irritated  or  diseased  organ  normally  brings  the  reply  of 
inflammation,  reaction,  motion,  etc.,  back  to  the  organ 
irritated  or  affected.  The  out-valuing  importance  of  the 
eye  over  most  every  other  organ  makes  this  a  dangerous 
result,  and  hence  an  exception  is  instituted  to  this  other- 
wise almost  invariable  physiological  rule.  The  result  is 
that  the  pain  and  the  disease-effects  of  abnormal  ocular 
function  are  felt  elsewhere  than  in  the  eye  (reflex  neuroses) 
and  usually  as  pain  or  ache  in  the  brain.  This  morbidity 
and  anomalousness  of  reflex-return  is  doubled  by  the  fact 
that  facial  beauty  is  dependent  upon,  almost  consists  in,  the 
limpid,  soul-expressive  beauty  of  the  eye.  Now  the  influ- 
ence of  beauty  in  sexual  choice  and  its  powerful  role  in 
biological  history  are  plain  to  the  Darwinian  and  to  every 
one  who  has  never  even  heard  of  Darwin.  As  the  natural 
return  of  the  reflex  to  the  eye  would  quickly  result  in 
inflammations  temporarily  or  permanently  destructive  of 
ocular  and  so  of  all  beauty,  the  subtle  wisdom,  nowhere  else 
so  severely  tested  and  so  evidently  present  as  in  the  eye, 
stores  up  the  irritation  in  the  brain  cells  (headache),  or 


138      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

shunts  them  elsewhere.  Not  one  patient  in  a  hundred 
complains  to  the  ophthalmic  surgeon  of  pain  or  visible 
disease  of  the  eye.  The  more  unrelieved  the  "  eye-strain," 
the  greater  the  production  of  irritational  unused  stimuli, 
and  the  greater  their  flow  or  overflow  to  other  centers. 
The  more  and  the  longer  the  storing  of  the  continuously 
generated  steam,  the  greater  the  pressure,  and  the  more 
harmful  and  certain  the  release  when  a  weak  rivet  or 
other  opportunity  is  present.  A  natural  and  a  customary 
method  of  obviating  the  injury  in  the  mechanism  consid- 
ered, is  to  shut  off  the  fuel  and  the  firing  by  means  of 
anorexia,  digestional  interference,  or  some  other  disturb- 
ance of  function. 

A  last  illustration  is  that  of  the  psychological  influence 
of  difficult  ocular  function.  Thousands  of  children  are 
to-day  being  switched  into  less  intellectual  lives,  are  being 
restricted  in  mental  development  or  occupation  in  life, 
by  the  fact,  to  them  unconscious,  of  irksomeness  and  of 
discomfort  in  reading,  in  study,  or  in  other  intellectual  task 
that  necessitates  labor  at  near  range  with  an  organ  illy 
adapted  for  the  work.  Activity  therefore  finds  outlet  in 
sports,  or  in  other  physical  methods  and  occupations ;  if 
the  task  be  forced,  worse  evils  ensue,  and  in  either  case 
parent  and  child  both  suffer. 

Of  profound  interest  to  the  philosopher  is  the  embryo- 
logical  fact  that  the  essential  organ  of  the  eye,  the  retina, 
is  a  cerebral  outgrowth,  and  not  a  dermal  structure.  The 
brain  comes  out  to  see.  It  is  not  the  light,  not  the  skin, 
that  goes  in  to  stimulate  and  interpret.  The  doctrine  that 
an  organ  and  an  organism  is  solely  a  mechanically  rigid 
reaction  to  the  environment  is  disproved  by  the  develop- 
mental history  of  every  organ,  but  notably  and  beautifully 
so  in  this  most  psychical  and  most  useful  of  all  the  senses. 


SENSATION.  139 

I  cannot  forbear  reference  to  a  possible  artistic  exten- 
sion of  the  function  of  vision  similar  to  that  already  made 
actual  in  hearing.  It  is  natural  that  music  should  have 
been  born  and  perfected  before  the  as-yet-unnamed  art  of 
visual  or  scenic  opera  and  representation.  The  lower  and 
simpler  must  precede  the  higher  and  more  complex,  and 
the  function  of  music  is  distinctly  emotional.  But  intel- 
lect is  higher  than  emotion,  and  vision  is  par  excellence  the 
sense  of  the  intellect,  at  once  its  servant  and  lover. 
Moreover,  a  series  of  symbols  lie  at  the  hand  of  the 
visual  artist,  of  far  greater  exactness  and  specificity  than 
Beethoven  or  Wagner  ever  had.  The  glory  of  Wagner 
will  be  that  he  sought,  and  successfully  too,  to  supply 
the  want  of  definite  musical  symbols  and  typifications 
of  concentrated  emotional  experience  by  a  somewhat 
artificial  but  withal  significant  series  of  representative 
harmonies.  He  tried  to  mentalize  emotions,  to  classify 
them,  and  to  epitomize  and  symbolize  them  by  the  motiv. 
He  bravely  and  creatively  marched  into  the  unknown  and 
definitized  his  art  with  this  de  novo  production,  which  has 
revolutionized  music  and  that  will  set  it  in  progressive 
advance  to  yet  undreamed-of  vigor  and  splendor.  The 
coming  opera  of  visual  harmonies  and  delights  is  only 
suggested  by  the  perfection  of  scenery  of  the  modern 
stage,  approximated  by  the  Berlin  "  Urania,"  but  no  one 
has  thought  of  making  the  eye  the  sole  organ  appealed 
to  in  a  great  work  of  creative  art.  This  combination  of 
sculpture  and  painting;  the  symbolisms  of  color;  the 
scenes  of  landscape  ;  of  water,  still,  rippled,  or  colored  ;  of 
multi-colored  illumination;  of  atmospheric  effects;  of 
sunsets, — these  form  an  alphabet  of  visual  elements  where- 
with an  artist  could  make  an  evening  of  pure,  peculiar, 
and  of  more  intellectual  enjoyment  than  has  yet  been 


140     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

known.  Nature  rarely  unites  all  the  conditions  of  a  per- 
fect landscape  or  sunset.  For  example,  it  is  only  once  in 
the  life  of  but  few  that  one  stands  upon  a  plank  or  two  in  a 
still,  horizonless  ocean,  with  nothing  for  the  eye  to  rest 
upon,  a  cloud  of  fog  distantly  hiding  everything  above, 
below,  and  all  about  in  a  monotone  of  gray,  and  in  the 
east  a  huge  ball  of  red  fire  gleaming,  and  in  the  west 
another  similar  globe  of  lurid  light, — self  lost  in  the  midst 
of  nothingness,  the  lifted  hovering  Ego  stared  at  from  the 
depths  of  infinite  space  by  the  ghostly  glory  of  those  two 
motionless,  splendid,  terrible,  cosmic  eyes. 

In  viewing  sensation  as  a  whole,  it  seems  impossible  to 
withhold  allusion  to  the  idealist's  contention  that  because 
all  qualities  of  objects,  one's  body,  nerves,  and  nervous 
centers,  just  as  well  as  the  extra-physiologic  world  of  in- 
organic matter,  are  only  to  be  stated  or  thought  of  in 
terms  of  mental  experience,  therefore  naught  but  mental 
experience  or  mentality  exists.  When  one  gets  wholly 
within  the  machinery-room  of  subjective  being,  and,  a  la 
Berkeley,  will  listen  or  indeed  can  listen  only  to  the  buzz 
and  din  of  one's  own  mental  machinery,  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  delude  one's  self  into  a  sort  of  somnambulistic 
daze  or  hypnotic  stupor,  and  to  simulate  a  belief  that 
objective  facts  do  not  exist,  or  that  they  exist  only  in 
relation  to  sensation,  and  that  "  the  organs  of  sense  are 
themselves  so  many  groups  of  sensible  phenomena  exist- 
ing only  in  the  mind,  the  body  itself  being  simply  a  part 
of  our  mental  experience."  "  If,"  says  an  idealist,*  "  if 
when  I  die  no  one  is  present  or  observes  me,  there  would 
be  no  physical  death,  properly  so-called,  but  simply 
the  inexplicable  fact  of  my  ceasing  to  feel  and  think." 
"  The  whole  sensible  world,  heavens,  earth,  and  the  physi- 

*  First  Steps  in  Philosophy,  by  W.  M.  Salter  ;  Kerr&Co.,  Chicago,  1892. 


SENSATION.  141 

ologic  body,  are  equally  unreal  if  regarded  as  a  self-sub- 
sisting thing  apart  from  a  sentient  subject." 

These  are  spoken  words,  but  nobody  ever  imagined  the 
supposed  fact  they  represent.  They  are  simply  jugglings 
with  words  after  such  words  have  been  disconnected  from 
a  vital  significance  and  relationship  with  facts.  No 
Berkeley,  even  of  the  most  super-refined  and  gigantesque 
sort,  could  look  at  himself  in  the  mirror  and  say  that  his 
physiologic  body  is  non-existent  when  he  goes  to  sleep, 
or  when  neither  self  nor  any  one  else  is  present  to  evoke 
that  body  into  an  illusional  objectivity  by  the  power  of 
"mental  experience."  *  The  first  requisite  of  philosophic 
thought  is  to  recognize  differences  in  facts, — indeed  this  is 
the  beginning  and  end  of  all  intellectual  function.  To  see 
no  difference  between  the  objective,  self-existent  causes  of 
sensation,  and  the  ultimate  products  of  sensation,  is  simply 
philosophic  barbarism  or  monomania.  It  is  not  healthy 
thought.  To  deny  objectivity  and  self-existence  because 
the  forces  and  impingements  of  matter  must  be  translated 
into  sensation  before  being  presented  to  mind,  is  to 
flatter  one's  self  that  dreams  and  imaginations  are  facts  ; 
it  is  a  lazy  sort  of  dogmatism  that  contents  itself  with  the 
whirr  of  subjective  machinery,  rather  than  look  with  virile 
earnestness  into  the  question  of  whence  the  forces,  the 
coal,  the  steam,  and  the  piston,  that  propel  the  whole. 
The  natural  order  of  true  scientific  thought  consists  first 
in  the  study  of  molecular  physics,  or  the  nature  of  the 
objective  forces  ;  secondly  the  nature  of  the  receiving 
sense-organs  is  considered  ;  then  follow  the  problems  of 
nerve-force  and  nerve-transmission,  and  the  nature  of 

*  I  have  a  little  nephew  who,  in  his  grief  and  between  his  sobs  that  his 
mother  had  gone  away,  piteously  complained  that  she  had  not  at  least 
left  him  her  body  while  she  was  away.  True  philosopher,  that  baby  ! 


142      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

sensation  proper,  together  with  that  of  the  psychic  reality; 
finally  is  reached  the  consideration  of  the  whole  as  regards 
the  elements  of  product  or  reality  that  are  contributed 
by  each  factor. 

Sensation  of  any  kind  and  as  a  whole  is  but  the  mechan- 
ism of  that  differentiation  of  function  whereby  the  pur- 
poses of  Biologos  are  more  easily  and  perfectly  carried 
out.  We  are  obliged  to  admit  that  the  undifferentiated 
cell  has  all  the  same  kinds  of  powers  and  purposes  as  the 
highest  and  most  specialized  cell  or  being,  the  sole  differ- 
ence being  one  of  degree.  Thus  as  to  sensation  before 
being  assigned  a  special  function,  the  living  cell  shows 
reactions  to  light,  to  air-waves,  to  pressure,  to  heat,  to  cold, 
to  odors,  to  poisons,  to  anesthetics — in  a  word  to  all  phys- 
ical and  chemical  agents  and  agencies.  It  also  shows 
every  physiological  function  possessed  by  the  highest 
organism — that  is,  contractility  or  spontaneous  change  of 
form  ;  irritability,  or  response  to  stimulation  ;  respiration  ; 
anabolism,  or  the  indrawing  of  new  material,  the  building 
up  of  greater  complexity,  and  the  repair  of  waste ;  kata- 
bolism,  or  excretion  ;  and  reproduction.  The  lowest  uses 
of  sensation  are  the  nutritional  and  protective,  which  are 
sufficiently  evident,  but  the  higher  are  not  so  plain  and 
may  be  described  as  threefold  :  (i)  to  gain  control  of 
molar  motion  ;  (2)  to  learn  the  qualities,  actions,  and  laws 
of  the  inorganic  world ;  and  (3)  to  utilize  acquired 
power  of  molar  motion  and  knowledge  of  matter  for 
spiritual  uses,  enjoyments,  and  progress.  The  enjoy- 
ment is  largely  summarized  in  art  and  esthetics  ;  the  pro- 
gress in  the  increasing  dominion  of  mind  over  matter,  or 
the  control  and  ordering  of  the  inorganic  substances  and 
forces  of  the  universe.  The  final  cause  of  the  entire 
nervous  system  and  of  subordinate  functions  is  to  be 


SENSATION.  143 

found  in  that  aspect  of  differentiation  of  function  con- 
sisting in  the  more  perfect  control  and  use  of  an  order  of 
highly  complex  cerebral  cells,  more  accurately  and 
thoroughly  responsive  and  obedient  to  the  control  of 
Biologos,  and  whereby  He  can  more  perfectly  effect  His 
purpose  and  make  permanent  His  use  of  the  whole 
organism.  Nor  should  we  forget  that  in  His  specialization 
of  control-cells  these  immediate  agents  of  the  highest  in- 
carnation are  also  the  final  end-products  of  organization, 
and  that  they  have  the  exalted  function  of  carrying  to 
Biologos  the  synthetized  quintessence  of  the  inorganic 
world,  and  the  revelation  to  the  mind  of  the  sublime 
products  of  objective  life.  They  are  at  once  the  first  dep- 
uties of  mental  control  and  the  last  finishers  of  received 
influences,  the  final  co-ordinators  of  concentrated  and 
representative  experience.  This  is  true,  because  the 
function  of  cell-pliancy  and  the  perfection  of  metaphysical 
control  must  be  as  much  or  more  a  matter  of  progress 
and  of  differentiation  as  that  of  musculation,  or  of  secre- 
tion. God's  control  of  the  process  of  incarnation,  and  the 
objectivation  of  Himself  is  progressive,  and  these  higher 
stages  are  dependent  upon  the  delicate  poise  of  tempera- 
ture, the  permanent  supply  of  ever-higher  orders  of  nutri- 
tion, and  upon  the  ever-increasing  complexity  of  cerebral 
cell-life  and  function.  The  struggle  for  existence  has  largely 
passed  the  nutritional  stage,  and  has  merged  itself  into  a 
struggle  for  intellect  and  art ;  and  a  similar  change  has  been 
reached  in  the  task  of  incarnation,  which  is  becoming  one 
of  an  ever-higher  differentiation  of  cerebral  cell-systems, 
based  upon  the  systematization  and  automatonization  of 
subordinate  centers  and  adjusting  mechanisms  of  similarly 
increasing  complexity.  And,  just  as  by  artistic  creations 
and  exercises  in  music  and  poetry,  we  make  application 


144     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

to  esthetic  uses  of  the  mechanisms  born  of  utility,  so,  hav- 
ing conquered  and  learned  the  world,  we  may  suppose 
that  God  is  preparing  arts  unknown  to  be  played  with  the 
completed  products  of  incarnation.  And  as  man  is  the 
highest  completed  product  of  incarnation,  so,  as  we  learn 
loyalty,  we  may  expect  each  personality  to  form  a  line  or  a 
thought  in  the  epic  of  the  coming  poem,  or  a  tone  in  the 
approaching  symphony  of  humanity. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
"  EVOLUTION." 

EVOLUTION  "  is  the  word  most  drummed  into  the 
ears  of  the  young  philosopher  and  the  godless 
child.  I  have  some  difficulty  in  controlling  my 
amused  contempt  at  the  mere  mention  of  it.  The  word 
is,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  evidence  either  of 
disingenuousness  of  heart  orof  indiscrimination  of  intellect, 
and  usually  of  both  combined.  By  its  devisers  and  users 
the  term  is  applied  to  two  unrelated  and  unrelatable  orders 
of  phenomena,  the  living  and  the  non-living.  If  it  be  ap- 
plied to  both  it  must  denote  only  a  colorless  meaning,  like 
that  of  the  word,  being,  or  fact,  or  phenomenon.  If  it  can 
specify  any  quality  of  the  one,  or  any  considerable  pecu- 
liarity beyond  the  mere  fact  of  existence,  it  cannot  specify 
that  quality  of  the  other,  because  matter  and  life  have  little 
more  in  common  than  mere  existence.  In  the  entire 
realm  of  inorganic  matter  untouched  by  life,  all  changes 
are  non-purposive,  proceed  purely  mechanically,  repeat 
themselves  aimlessly,  and  lead  nowhither.  In  other 
words,  there  is  change  but  not  progress,  causation  without 
object,  rigid  uniformity  but  not  freedom.  It  is  perfectly 
logical  that  after  the  designation  of  two  such  diverse  types 
of  phenomena  with  one  name,  its  shrewd  fathers  should 
proceed  in  the  natural  course  of  self-stultification  by 
denying  the  existence  of  life,  purpose,  and  freedom  in 
biological  phenomena.  To  them  the  mechanical  clank, 
10  145 


146      THE  MEANING  AND    THE    METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

clank,  of  a  blessed  determinism  is  both  natural  and 
certain.  But  their  neophytes  and  pupils  will  by  no  means 
so  see  the  world  ;  they  protest  that  there  are  bird-songs, 
mother-love,  laughter ;  that  there  are  sports  of  children 
and  "  sports  "  of  morphology  (how  the  last  must  be  to 
the  scientist  as  holy-water  to  the  stage-mephisto,) — and 
if  "  evolution  "  covers  these  things,  the  sensible  child 
will  unconsciously  say,  "  Why,  then  it  can't  be  such  a 
horrid  bugaboo  as  our  teachers  would  have  us  believe." 
There  is  therefore  a  lazy,  cunning,  double  sin  thus  dex- 
trously  allowed  and  encouraged  by  those  who  should  have 
both  more  honor  and  more  intellect.  Like  a  great  many 
more  such  words  "  Evolution  "  is  a  large  garment  for  cover- 
ing a  multitude  of  sins.  It  is  about  on  a  par  with  the 
indirectness  wrapped  up  in  the  word  agnosticism,  or  the 
words  God,  and  Father,  as  used  by  some  "  liberals  "  who 
in  their  hearts  acknowledge  neither  personality  nor  guiding 
love  in  their  brand  new  mechanic-god,  stuffed  into  the  old 
wine-bottles  of  an  ancient  faith.  "  Agnostic  "  and  "  evolu- 
tion "  thus  connote  meanings  very  different  from  those  held 
by  their  concoctors.  The  ethical  sin  consists  of  the  con- 
currence in  such  connotation,  and  in  giving  out  that  ticket- 
ing a  process  as  evolutional  explains  it,  or  does  away  with  an 
intelligent  evolutor.  Thousands  who  make  a  God  of  evo- 
lution do  it  by  stealing  attributes  from  the  old  divinity 
and  hiding  them  carefully  under  the  cloak  of  the  new  one. 
The  new  cathedral  is  made  of  stones  quarried  from  the 
deserted  ruins  of  the  old  temple  ;  the  name  of  the  deity  is 
changed,  but  the  worship  secretly  continues. 

Take  the  official  definition  :  "  An  integration  of  matter 
and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion  ;  during  which  the 
matter  passes  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity 
to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity;  and  during  which 


DEVOLUTION."  147 

the  retained  motion  undergoes  a  parallel  transformation." 
With  perfect  candor  one  may  first  ask,  has  one  learned 
from  it  anything  of  the  world  ?  It  is  so  colorless  and 
vague,  so  powerless  to  help  the  imagination,  that  one 
might  quite  as  well  say,  things  change  and  multiplicity 
results.  Even  if  true,  it  is  so  indefinite  as  to  be  of  little 
use  to  the  inquiring  mind.  The  generalization  does  not 
even  glitter,  so  devoid  is  it  of  specificity  and  life. 

Even  if  true  of  the  inorganic  changes,  is  it  true  of 
biological  phenomena  ?  Certainly  a  large  portion  of 
vital  phenomena  illustrates  the  reverse  of  the  theorem. 
One  full  half  of  every  living  metabolic  process  is  katabolic, 
and  katabolism  is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  definition. 
Indeed,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer  himself,  "  reverse  dis- 
tribution "  is  precisely  one  half  of  the  world-process 
organic  or  inorganic,  and  "  reverse  distribution  "  or  "  dis- 
solution "  yet  awaits  its  Spencer  to  base  a  universal 
philosophy  upon  a  neglected  half  of  all  phenomena.  The 
characteristic  of  organic  "  evolution,"  i.  e.,  of  living 
anabolism  or  constructive  change,  is  progress  ;  that  of 
all  inorganic  "  evolution,"  however,  is  simply  change, 
change  by  pure  mechanical  forces,  undesigned  and  leading 
nowhither.  To  cover  both  processes  by  the  one  word 
tells  little  enough  about  physics,  but  it  tells  absolutely 
nothing  about  the  distinctive  quality  of  metaphysics, 
unless  it  be  that,  temporarily,  perhaps,  unity  results  in 
diversity — a  somewhat  unsatisfying  creed.  But  the  other 
half  of  the  truth  is  the  reverse,  and  to  say  that  diversity 
results  in  unity  is  precisely  as  true  a  statement,  and  often 
more  illuminating  to  the  mind.  The  wonderful  unity 
produced  by  ten  thousand  bees,  their  exquisite  workings, 
adjustments,  divisions  of  labor,  sacrifices,  interdepen- 
dences, and  ingenuities,  produce  an  astounding  singleness 


148      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  result.  So  with  every  illustration  of  mentality  in  nature. 
It  takes  billions  of  separate  cells,  "  diversities,"  to  create 
the  unity  of  each  organ  and  of  each  organism. 

As  applied  to  the  inorganic  world,  evolution  can  mean 
nothing  more  than  the  purposeless  sequence  of  mechani- 
cally caused  change.  There  is  not,  legitimately,  any 
"  development  "  here,  because  that  word  connotes  method- 
ical progress  and  precedent  purpose,  and  these  are 
characteristics  that  apply  only  to  biological  phenomena, 
whilst  the  great  gloomy  and  mysterious  word  Evolution 
is  kept  as  a  sort  of  primary  Fate  that  rules  all  worlds, 
things,  men,  and  gods. 

Limited  to  its  strict  etymological  signification  and 
stripped  of  unlicensed  connotation,  the  word  evolution  can 
only  be  applied  to  one  aspect  of  one  half  (anabolism)  of 
the  biologic  process,  whilst  it  fails  to  cover  many  aspects 
even  of  anabolism,  and  has  no  application  whatever  to 
katabolic  changes  whether  physical  or  metaphysical.  The 
one  idea  clearly  called  up  in  the  mind  by  the  word  is  that 
of  a  ceaseless  process,  of  which  every  step,  stage,  or  instant  is 
derived  from  that  of  the  immediately  preceding  condition, 
by  the  absolutely  necessary  (mechanical,  deterministic,  or 
unavoidable)  action  of  natural  (or  mechanical)  inherent 
forces.  Now  this,  as  regards  living  things,  is  utterly 
false.  Every  cell  and  somacule  of  living  matter  is  what  it 
is  by  the  incoming,  re-creating,  and  in-living  control  of  an 
extra-cellular  intelligent  force.  This  scorned  fact  is  deftly 
slipped  out  of  sight  by  the  further  explanation  on  the  part 
of  the  "  evolutionists  "  that  the  living  organism  is  dis- 
tinguished by  a  rigid  (mechanical  or  necessary)  adaptation 
of  the  organism  to  external  circumstance,  or  reaction  to 
external  changes.  Here  again  is  a  double  untruth,  by 
confusing  and  by  ignoring.  The  confusion  consists  of 


"  E  VOLUTION."  149 

making  "  adaptation  "  and  "  reaction  "  necessary,  unex- 
ceptional, and  mechanical,  whilst  to  all  of  us  simple  folk, 
the  words  unavoidably  imply  intelligence,  discrimination, 
mentality.  A  "  reaction  "  that  does  not  flow  from  men- 
tality would  speedily  end  in  the  death  of  the  reactor.  The 
ignoring  consists  in  not  seeing  that  by  all  odds  the  larger 
number  of  acts  of  living  beings  have  not  their  origin  or 
anything  whatever  to  do  with  "  reactions  to  external 
changes  and  stimuli."  All  growth,  as  of  the  ovum  and 
child,  proceeds  from  within  ;  the  roles  of  the  repro- 
ductive instinct,  of  hunger,  and  nutrition,  are  called  forth  by 
no  external  circumstance  but  spontaneously  arise  within, 
always  dominating  and  using  external  circumstance. 
What  have  music,  art,  aspiration,  and  moral  ideals,  to  do 
with  external  stimuli?  Verily  it  is  pathetically  strange 
that  a  mind  so  great  and  calm  as  that  of  Spencer  could  be 
dominated  by  a  preconceived  theory  so  much  as  to  ignore 
and  misconstrue  the  greater  part  and  the  most  striking  of 
facts.  It  shows  the  fatuity  of  deductive  reasoning  ;  but 
sadder  still,  it  shows  how  a  captivating  theory  may  enslave 
the  mind  of  a  supposably  inductive  thinker,  and,  bewitch- 
ing thousands  of  less  discriminating  followers,  handicap 
science  and  lead  modern  thought  into  an  impasse  of  error. 
Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  entire  domain  of  the 
organic  and  metaphysical,  we  find  that  the  "  laws  "  of  the 
atomicity  of  matter,  and  of  the  persistence  and  inter- 
transformation  of  forces,  explain  all  the  meaningless 
changes  occurring  in  this  world.  Turning  to  the  world  of 
living  things,  let  us  grasp  the  essential  idea  or  mystery 
desired  to  be  expressed,  or  mistakenly  understood,  by  the 
word  evolution.  I  mean  the  mystery  of  the  gradual  pro- 
cess. Here  is  something  every  one  sees  is  different  from 
any  purely  mechanical  process.  The  scientist's  sin  is  in 


I5O     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ignoring,  jumbling,  or  denying  the  difference,  whilst  the 
waiting  world  stands  dazed  before  the  inexplicability  of 
it.  As  to  absolute  origin  I  have  of  course  no  explanation 
to  offer  except  that  already  emphasized  and  to  me  very 
satisfying  one,  of  its  creation  and  instant  in-living  by  the 
self-incarnation  of  Biologos.  But  the  very  heart  of  the  mys- 
tery yet  untouched  is  the  chronicity  or  slow  progressive- 
ness  of  the  process,  the  facts  of  rejuvenescence,  senescence, 
and  death  of  individual  forms,  the  continuity  of  special 
character  and  purpose  throughout  any  one  line  of  these 
sequent  organisms,  and  the  domination  of  one  harmonic 
character  and  purpose  over  and  through  the  entire  order 
of  all  sequences.  The  explanation  of  this  I  have  never 
seen  attempted  or  known  to  be  thought  of  as  within  the 
scope  of  human  reason.  And  yet  the  key  seems  to  me  to 
lie  placed  in  our  hands  by  the  most  childishly  easy  and 
simple  perception  of  the  controlling  necessity  or  struggle 
that  constitutes  the  essential  fact  of  the  life-history  of 
every  cell,  organ,  and  organism,  of  one's  own  life,  of  all 
history,  vegetable,  animal,  or  human.  I  mean  nutrition, 
in  its  full  significance,  as  the  condition  of  cell-building  and 
cell-control,  cells  being  the  primary  intermediates  or  ele- 
ments of  incarnation,  through  the  association  and  con- 
joined work  of  which  in  organs  and  organisms,  Biologos  is 
with  difficulty  working  out  His  ulterior  purposes.  The 
condition  or  difficulty  is  plainly  nutritional,  disease  being 
impaired  nutrition  ;  death  of  the  individual  organism  being 
the  seeming  victory  of  the  difficulty ;  sociological  progress, 
ethics,  the  good  of  civilization,  being  firstly  and  physio- 
logically the  sharing,  assuring,  and  stabilizing  of  nutri- 
tional success,  and,  secondly,  the  working  out  of  the  meta- 
physiological  purpose.  The  life  of  plant,  animal,  or  man, 
from  seed  or  ovum  to  death,  is  based  upon  the  necessity 


"EVOLUTION."  151 

of  gathering  food  from  without.  Disease  and  death  are 
solely  the  consequences  of  incapacity  to  gather  or  to 
utilize  the  food.  The  condition  of  the  cell  or  of  the 
individual  (organized  family  of  cells)  is  the  condition 
imposed  upon  God,  literally  and  in  large ;  and  the  great 
mysteries  and  characteristics  of  organic  history,  viewed  in 
their  physiological  and  strictly  biological  aspects,  are  indi- 
vidually and  collectively  the  results  of  this  difficulty  or 
condition  pressed  upon  Deity  by  the  nature  and  laws  of 
matter.  Blinded  by  an  illogical  deductive  habit  of  mind, 
controlled  by  an  unscientific  scorn  and  a  "  reaction  "  from 
religious  habits,  Science  has  failed  to  realize  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  plainest  of  all  facts,  which  is  mentality  in 
living  things  put  to  enormous  labor  by  the  difficulties  of 
nutrition.  In  a  world  of  mechanics,  with  so  great  differ- 
ences and  fluctuations  of  temperature,  with  storm  and 
drouth,  with  flood,  ice-ages,  submergences  of  continents, 
volcano  and  earthquake,  and  a  hundred  like  enemies 
always  about  and  before,  Biologos  has  had  to  take  precau- 
tions, forefend  dangers,  devise  mechanisms  of  defence  and 
safety,  preserve  balances  and  control,  hold  by  infinite 
devices  and  watchfulness  against  the  elusive  slipping  to 
rest  or  out  of  control  of  the  dead  atoms, — all  in  myriad 
ways,  and  with  a  subtle  wisdom,  of  which  the  mind  of  man 
has  scarcely  begun  to  find  the  faintest  clue  or  hint.  And 
with  it  all  He  has  had  to  keep  the  march  onward  and 
upward  towards  the  final  result,  civilization,  and  of  what 
civilization  has  scarcely  yet  commenced  to  prophesy. 
Because,  so  far,  all,  or  nearly  all,  is  but  prophesy  and 
preparation.  Herein  rests  the  blessed  logic  of  faith. 
1  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him."  But  this 
faith  must  be  supplemented  by  an  intellectual  perception 
of  present  difficulties  being  conquered,  of  progress  going 


152       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

on,  and  of  final  victory  certain,  whence  will  arise  in  the 
heart  of  mankind  a  living  intellectualized  religion,  and  a 
large  reasoned  content  that  that  heart  has  never  yet  known. 
And  such  an  intellectual  religion  will  inspire  men  to 
become  God's  co-workers  and  co-partners, — true  sons  of 
God,  according  to  the  grand  old  promise, — whereby  "  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  "  will  be  immeasurably  hastened, 
and  wherein,  also,  that  Kingdom  really  consists. 

One  suggested  thought  may  appropriately  be  interjected 
in  this  connection — the  instinctive  clinging  to  life  on  the 
part  of  cell  and  organism.  In  part  this  may  be  inter- 
preted as  a  corollary  of  the  automatonization  of  function, 
the  persistence  in  action  of  specialized  cells.  But  this  by 
no  means  accounts  for  the  "  never-give-up  "  of  the  non- 
self-conscious  organism,  the  acceptance  of  life  when  its 
meaning  is  utterly  lost  in  denied  and  distorted  function, 
in  degradations  of  a  thousand  types  and  degrees,  in  dwarf- 
ings,  stuntings,  and  reversions,  and  in  most  pitiable  adap- 
tations to  tyrant  condition.  There  is  no  suicide  among 
God's  creatures  who  have  not  been  given  deputed  power, 
i.  e.,  it  exists  nowhere  except  in  disloyal  man.  His  true 
lieges  dispute  the  last  inch  of  place  gained,  and  die  only 
when  killed.  In  part  again  this  is  explained  by  the  posi- 
tive truth  that  upon  the  brave  fighting  for  and  holding  on 
to  life  on  the  part  of  the  humblest  plant  or  animal  may 
depend  the  fate  of  the  entire  fauna  and  flora  of  a  conti- 
nent or  of  a  world,  threatened  as  it  is  with  wreck  by  the 
possible  disasters  and  certain  changes  of  a  physical  world 
such  as  ours.  But  even  this  would  explain  only  the  aspect 
of  positive  assertion,  the  exuberant  energy  to  extend  ;  it 
would  not  explain  the  instinctive  heart-clutching  fear  of 
death  and  the  acceptance  of  life  under  conditions  that 
make  it  absurdly  illogical.  That,  I  take  it,  is  explained 


"EVOLUTION."  153 

only  by  the  terrible  struggle  Biologos  has  had  to  get  his 
foothold  in  matter,  only  by  the  memory  of  the  long 
and  bitter  labor,  and  of  how  often  defeat  may  have  really 
happened,  and  of  how  much  more  often  it  was  averted  by 
infinite  device,  resolution,  and  exertion.  The  fact  that 
the  labor  of  the  primary  step  of  incarnation  was  a  hercu- 
lean task,  that  it  was  at  once  a  subjection  of  obstinate 
enemies,  and  a  watchfulness  of  surrounding  enemies  still 
more  uncompromising — a  true  invasion  into  a  hostile 
world, — gleams  out  upon  us  from  every  biological  fact. 
And  chiefly  from  the  astonishing  observation  that  Biologos 
always  proceeds  from  his  foothold  gained,  and  never  from 
a  de  novo  beginning.  However  useless  and  degraded  and 
lowly  the  speck  of  living  plasm,  it  is  the  vantage-ground 
of  intrenched  victory, — nay,  of  a  hundred  victories  over 
the  stubbornest  of  enemies,  and  no  surrender  is  its  sole 
battle-cry.  From  this  citadel  and  "  base  of  supplies  "  the 
army  may  go  forth  to  the  conquering  of  a  world.  This 
says  plainly  enough :  "  No  new  attempts  or  experiments. 
Like  the  telegraphic  current  of  electricity,  we  can  proceed 
eastward  around  the  whole  world  and  reach  yonder 
western  shore  rather  than  jump  this  little  space."  Spon- 
taneous generation  and  the  creation  of  the  homunculus 
will  not  take  place  in  the  laboratories  of  the  nineteenth  or 
of  the  twentieth  century.  No  scientist  ever  saw  the  first 
stirring  of  life  in  dead  matter.  Omne  vivum  ex  vivo 
implies  that  a  difficult  task  once  completed  will  not  be 
recommenced  for  the  sake  of  curiosity  or  gymnastics. 

And  the  difficulty  of  the  task  is  the  raison  d'etre  of  "  evo- 
lution," defined  as  the  gradual  unfolding  and  develop- 
ment of  life  on  the  earth.  The  only  way  to  reach  man 
was  by  means  of  millions  of  years  of  endeavor  and  through 
the  millions  of  progressively  preparative  stages  of  prece- 


154       THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

dent  vegetable  and  animal  types.  There  is  a  tendency 
nowadays  to  sneer  at  the  essential  truth  of  the  devel- 
opment theory.  "  The  theologians  are  now  taking 
courage,"  it  is  said,  and,  secure  within  their  fortress, 
the  pickets  of  the  scientists  are  indifferent  to  the  bold 
sorties  of  their  enemies.  Both  furnish  diversion  for  the 
non-combatant  spectator,  who  if  the  scientists  were  in 
much  danger  from  this  little  attack  would  whistle  the 
signal  of  alarm  that  would  put  the  special  creationists  to 
easy  rout.  Missing  links,  and  all  such,  are  only  needed  by 
the  minds  whose  processes,  like  bad  machines,  move  only 
with  mechanical  clank,  clank.  The  slightest  study  of 
our  world  proves  that  only  from  the  present  nov  GTOO  does 
the  hidden  life  proceed  to  develop  distant  types  through 
intermediate  modifications  and  correlated  stages.  Back- 
ward only  do  the  lines  lead  to  unity  ;  forward  no  type 
fuses ;  that  way  is  everlasting  diversity.  "  Phylogeny 
is  the  repetition  of  Ontogeny "  is  a  maxim  based  on 
inexpugnable  fact. 

Mr.  Spencer's  unworthy  and  fallacious  attempt  to 
smudge  over  the  marks  of  difference  between  phenomena 
that  are  purely  mechanical  and  those  that  are  meta- 
mechanical,  however  necessary  to  his  theory,  is  good 
intellect  wasted  in  a  bad  cause.  A  critic  has  justly  said 
that  even  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  demanded  a  beginning  of 
life  on  earth.  The  early  heat  left  no  room  for  doubt 
about  that.  Mr.  Spencer's  answer  consists  in  placing  the 
prestidigitator's  foulard  of  infinite  time  and  infinite  num- 
bers of  progressive  stages,  over  the  trick  of  creation. 
When  the  delusive  mysterious  silk  handkerchief  is  deftly 
removed,  the  completed  product  of  living  form  is  revealed 
to  the  gaping  crowd.  It  would  have  been  easy  for  some 
"  logic  coach  "  to  have  disclosed  the  stupid  fallacy  of  Zeno's 


"EVOLUTION."  155 

paradox,  even  were  it  not  de  facto  sufficiently  evident 
that  the  hare  would  catch  the  tortoise,  if,  peradventure, 
he  were  silly  enough  to  enter  the  race.  The  subjective 
possibility  of  imagining  an  infinite  number  of  fractions 
between  one  and  two,  and  the  supposed  consequent 
impossibility  of  uniting  two  integers,  does  not  weaken 
the  truth  that  one  and  one  do  make  two,  nor  do  the 
infinite  number  of  the  stages  imaginable  between  me- 
chanical and  vital  phenomena  do  away  with  the  fact 
that  the  two  orders  are  for  evermore  distinct  and  non- 
identifiable,  and  that  they  always  proceed  from  distinct, 
unidentifiable  origins.  The  lowest  living  cell  and  the 
highest  non-living  molecule  are  separated  by  a  chasm  so 
wide  that  no  thought  has  ever  legitimately  bridged  it, 
and  so  deep  that  no  sounding  has  ever  fathomed  it. 

There  is  one  phase  of  the  relation  of  the  cell  to  evolu- 
tion to  which  I  have  not  known  allusion  made.  It  is 
admitted  that  "  phylogeny  repeats  ontogeny,"  or  that  the 
life  history  of  the  individual  is  that  of  the  race,  or  vice 
versa.  Now  every  organic  individual  begins  as  a  simple 
cell,  and  therefore  the  first  living  matter  on  the  globe 
must  have  been  that  of  a  single  cell.  The  primal  and 
typical  mechanism  of  the  incarnation  of  life  was  and  still 
remains  cellular.  There  is  no  truth  of  science  more  abso- 
lutely certain  than  that  summed  up  in  the  maxim,  omnis 
cellula  e  cellula.  Virchow  has  conclusively  shown  that  no 
cell  is  formed  anew,  i.  e.,  out  of  or  by  a  supposed  plastic 
lymph.  Every  cell  springs  from  a  previous  cell  by  hered- 
ity and  continuity.  There  is  no  epigenesis  or  generatio 
equivoca.  Biologos  can  only  work  from  the  existing 
mechanism  of  cell-formation,  from  the  secured  foothold, 
outward  and  onward.  The  power  to  hold  vast  numbers 
of  subordinate  systems  of  complex  molecules  about  a 


156       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

common  center  is  possible  to  the  cell-mechanician  only 
with  and  through  the  great  complex  that  has  been  once 
established.  There  is  no  possibility  of  nutrition  and  fur- 
ther outbuilding  .of  cell-life  otherwise  than  by  means  of 
the  established  mechanism.  If  one  does  not  perceive  a 
difference  in  kind  between  this  cell-genesis  and  cell-nutri- 
tion on  the  one  hand,  and  the  formation  of  a  crystal, 
then  it  is  useless  to  argue  with  him.  The  term  organic 
crystallization  is  an  egregious  contradiction  in  itself.  It 
is  a  myth  of  the  illogician  and  of  the  materialist.  The 
formation  of  the  crystal  is  the  result  of  purely  physical 
forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  Cell-genesis  is  a  true 
birth  following  growth,  guided  by  a  power  using  as  tools 
all  physical  forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
REPRODUCTION. 

A  WISE  man  once  said  that  whilst  great  philosophers 
were  learnedly  speculating  about  the  world,  hunger 
and  love  were  producing  and  controlling  it.  It 
is  a  profound  truth.  The  role  of  hunger,  as  we  have  seen, 
reaches  down  to  the  very  essence  of  the  process  of  incar- 
nation. To  establish  the  stable  equilibrium  of  a  complex 
molecular  system  by  bringing  into  it  subordinated  mole- 
cules, and  then  exhausting  them  of  their  contained  force, 
this  is  the  first  and  continuous  work  of  every  living  cell 
or  rather  cell-master.  The  problem  of  nutrition  precedes, 
underlies,  and  controls  every  other  biological  problem. 

And  even  also  that  of  sexual  reproduction.  The  wise 
man  might  have  said  that  hunger  alone  ruled  the  world, 
if  he  had  seen  what  a  spiritual-minded  science  has  at  last 
begun  to  get  glimpses  of,  viz.,  that  the  entire  mechanism 
of  reproduction,  together  with  all  the  influences  and  con- 
sequences of  sex  and  sexualism,  are  but  factors  and  devices 
of  Biologos  to  overcome  difficulties  of  nutrition  and  to 
turn  these  difficulties  into  the  very  means  of  progress. 
The  last  word  of  a  careful  and  enlightened  science  (to 
which  result  it  is  highly  suggestive  to  note  that  the  unpro- 
fessional, the  enthused  amateur  has  contributed  the  most 
living  results  and  done  the  most  patient  work)  is  that, 
from  the  lowest  flagellate  to  homo  the  function  of  repro- 
duction is  to  bring  about  rejuvenescence,  or,  what  is  the 

i57 


T'8       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

same  thing,  to  avoid  senescence.  Weissmann's  theories, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  materialist  and  mechanical  "ex- 
planations "  of  heredity,  are  found  unscientific,  and  science 
is  driven  back  straight  to  the  acknowledgment  of  "  conju- 
gation "  as  a  device  to  avoid  deterioration  and  running- 
down  of  the  clock.  This  rejuvenescence  of  the  running- 
down  or  exhausting  cell  is  effected  in  three  ways:  I.  By 
Rest,  whereby  the  innate  powers  of  recuperation,  the 
healing  power  inherently  possessed  by  the  cell,  restore 
and  restock  it  with  new  vitality ;  i.e.,  it  takes  time  to 
carry  out  anabolism  even  in  the  presence  of  an  existing 
food-supply.  2.  By  a  change  of  a  mode  of  life  (as  in  para- 
sitic fungi),  whereby  the  cell  or  organism,  again  without 
division  or  conjugation,  recuperates  itself  in  new  condi- 
tions. These  new  conditions  can  be  thought  of  in  no 
other  way  than  as  those  aiding  toward  improved  nutri- 
tion :  it  seeks  new  pastures.  3.  By  conjugation  and  fer- 
tilization, i.e.,  by  the  fusion  of  complementing  organisms, 
that  supplement  each  other's  deficiencies,  and  double  the 
life-forces  of  the  single  and  separate  gamete.  Scientifi- 
cally, therefore,  the  origin  of  sex  consists  in  the  gradual 
differentiation  of  gametes  (uniting  cells)  into  categories 
of  distinct  size  and  habit,  and  the  reunion  of  the  diverse 
(male  and  female)  cells,  each  with  diverse  histories,  de- 
ficiencies, and  excellencies,  reinvigorates  the  resultant 
organism  by  neutralizing  deficiency  and  reinforcing 
advantages.  Whatever  temporary  exception  seems  to 
break  the  force  of  the  theory,  endogamy  (in-and-in  breed- 
ing) must  finally  prove  bad  for  the  type,  and  exogamy  be 
to  its  advantage.  From  all  this  is  plainly  apparent  the 
controlling  influence  of  the  cellular  and  organismal  struggle 
for  nutrition,  and  against  the  running-down  of  the  clock- 
work of  the  physiological  system  or  unit.  It  presupposes 


REPRODUCTION.  159 

and  rests  upon  the  conception  of  a  cytology  that  views 
the  cell-system  as  made  and  upheld  by  an  extra-cellular 
master,  who  is  at  once  steam  and  engineer,  keeping  the 
machine  at  work  by  ever  watchful  energy,  and  performing 
the  task,  impossible  to  the  pure  mechanic  and  materialist, 
of  producing  from  two  of  his  like-unlike  mechanisms  a 
newer  and  better  "rejuvenescent"  one,  to  replace  the 
elder  when  these  have  been  "  worn  out."  The  most  ludi- 
crous fancy  of  a  baby  locomotive,  spontaneously  growing 
and  born  from  two  larger  engines,  is  quite  as  sensible  as 
the  materialistic  world-conceptions  of  some  "  philosophers," 
and  gives  one  a  realizing  sense  of  the  difference  between 
a  living  and  a  dead  organism. 

But  I  wish  to  pierce  still  deeper  into  the  heart  of  the 
mystery  of  reproduction.  The  word,  rejuvenescence,  does 
not  still  quite  reveal  it.  The  labor  of  reproduction,  viewed 
as  a  cosmical  fact,  is  plainly  a  tremendously  expensive 
and  difficult  piece  of  work ;  it  is  clearly  an  ingenious  and 
roundabout  way  of  obviating  a  worse  result,  and  it  is 
clearly  imposed  by  the  material  conditions  of  incarnation. 
Like  all  things  material  the  cell  is  liable  to  "wear  and 
tear."  With  all  His  incomprehensible  ingenuity,  Biologos 
has  been  unable  to  construct  a  permanently  durable  cell 
or  organismal  home.  The  unstable  equilibrium  with  which 
He  is  able  to  endow  the  cell  lasts  but  a  little  time,  and 
the  most  noteworthy  peculiarity  that  I  find  in  this  world 
is  that  the  new  house  that  Biologos  makes  before  the  old 
has  become  untenable,  and  into  which  he  moves  or  trans- 
plants Himself,  is  built  precisely  on  the  model  of  the  old 
ones.  The  ground  plan  and  essential  superstructure  are 
never  changed  except  imperceptibly  or  slowly,  and  there 
is  seldom  much  sudden  change  in  the  unimportant  details 
of  ornamentation,  etc.  There  is  slow  change  and  progress 


l6o       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

everywhere.  This  is  the  "  law  "  of  the  development  by 
types,  and  extension  only  along  the  lines  leading  out  from 
all  the  past.  That  each  animal  breeds  its  kind  is  so  uni- 
form a  fact,  that  its  strangeness  strikes  no  one ;  and  yet, 
exceedingly  strange  it  is,  and  requires  explanation.  An 
architect  that  makes  his  houses  all  alike  is  called  stupid 
and  unimaginative.  Now  the  Divine  Architect  is  far  from 
stupid  or  unimaginative.  Why,  in  the  quite  infinite  spon- 
taneousness  of  his  imagination  and  power,  does  he  not 
create  an  infinite  diversity  of  forms,  not  on  type-lines,  but 
giving  exuberant  play  to  diversity  within  types,  and  at 
will  jumping  the  boundaries  of  genus  and  family,  produce 
from  one  set  of  conjugating  reproductive  cells,  beings 
utterly  unlike  the  parents?  To  put  the  question  thus  is 
to  introduce  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  that  answers  itself. 
Such  would  certainly  be  a  world  far  inferior  in  order  and 
interest  to  the  one  before  us.  Besides,  in  the  multiplicity 
of  types  quite  beyond  enumeration,  each  following  its 
own  line  of  development,  we  have  precisely  the  varie- 
gated world  we  desire.  But  the  deeper  reasons  are  plainly 
those  of  the  nutritional  necessities  of  his  organisms  once 
that  they  have  been  created,  whilst  still  deeper  lies  the 
fundamental  reason  that  the  biologic  Architect  has  to 
make  not  only  his  own  tools  but  his  own  material  mech- 
anisms, and  that  from  an  existing  organism  can  be  obtained 
only  germs  of  like  chemically-constructed  somacules  and 
cells.  The  new  house  grows  out  of  the  old,  and  in  essen- 
tials and  within  limits  must  be  like  it. 

Digression  passed,  we  return  to  the  fact  that  the  cell- 
system,  as  well  as  the  organismal  unity,  can  preserve  con- 
tinuity of  function  for  but  a  little  while.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  deterioration  that  suggests  the  simile  of  the 
clock,  not  only  needing  both  constant  and  periodical 


RE  PROD  UC  TION.  1 6 1 

"  winding-up,"  but,  despite  all,  finally  wearing  out.  For 
a  time  the  cell-units  as  they  die  may  be  supplied  by  new 
ones,  and  the  organismal  unity  still  preserved,  but  in  time 
the  larger  unit  goes  inevitably  through  senescence  to 
death.  The  very  nature  of  life,  and  the  desperate  devices 
taken  to  circumvent  it,  show  that  death  is  not  a  part  of  the 
wish  and  plan  of  Biologos.  It  is  clearly  the  hated  condi- 
tion imposed  upon  The  Deathless  One  by  His  temporary 
servant,  matter,  and  with  all  His  ingenuity  He  has  not 
yet  learned  to  conquer  it.  In  reproduction  He  compro- 
mises and  circumvents  ;  it  is  not  a  "  victory  in  open  field," 
but  is,  as  it  were,  a  ruse  de  guerre  against  an  impregnably 
fortressed  enemy.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  but  that  with 
permanency  of  condition,  uniformity  of  nutrition,  and  tem- 
perature, the  planet  made  homelike  in  all  its  parts,  and 
God  aided  by  man's  intelligent  loyalty,  human  death  may 
not  be  almost  or  quite  conquered.  It  is  certain  that  our 
lives  might  be  very  much  lengthened,  and  all  that  is  really 
desirable  as  to  earthly  immortality  fully  realized.  With 
some  of  these  conditions  attained  the  tree  has  learned  to 
preserve  its  beautiful  life  for  thousands  of  years.  Perhaps 
the  time  has  not  yet  arrived,  but  some  time  the  scientific 
study  of  the  conditions  and  means  of  preventing  senescence 
and  death  will  be  of  profound  importance  and  interest. 
Of  course,  the  avoidance  of  harmful  "wear  and  tear," 
by  hygienic  measures  will  be  necessary,  but  the  encour- 
agement of  the  unconscious  vital  nutritive  process  that 
can  replace  old  cells  with  new  ones  will  constitute  the 
primary  and  principal  means  until  the  true  immortality 
of  the  cell  itself  shall  have  been  secured  by  the  renovation 
of  its  parts.  Not  until  railroads  and  steamships  had  been 
perfected  have  the  facts  of  certainty  and  uniformity  in  the 
supply  of  the  crude  materials  of  nutrition  become  secure, 


1 62       THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

and  even  now  for  but  a  limited  number,  so  that  the  strug- 
gle for  temporary  maintenance  of  existence  and  reproduc- 
tion was  dominant,  and  Biologos  and  His  creatures  could 
give  little  or  no  attention  to  the  indefinite  lengthening  of 
individual  lives.  With  civilization  or  nutrition  secured, 
the  crusade  against  death  itself  may  be,  and  even  already 
has  been  entered  upon.  The  shameless  Brown-Sequard 
savagery  teaches  many  truths  wise  and  otherwise,  but  it 
at  least  showed  the  hope  and  the  pathetic  appeal  to  Life 
in  the  denier  of  life.  If  ever  gained,  the  victory  will,  of 
course,  not  be  sudden  :  God's  victories  are  never  so  ;  there 
may  be  cycle-long  approaches  and  temporary  failures,  and 
death  will  hardly  be  appeased  by  continuous  death-sacri- 
fices to  him.  Life  loves  all  her  children,  not  man  alone. 
Man  is  hardly  cunning  enough  to  play  tricks  with  God. 

In  the  meantime  it  is  consoling  to  notice  the  inex- 
haustible kindness  and  thoughtfulness  of  God  in  breaking 
the  force  of  all  penalties  and  tragedies.  Nothing  so 
arouses  love  and  gratitude  to  Him  as  vision  of  the  subtle 
foresight  with  which  He  has  softened  all  sorrows  and  pro- 
vided compensations  for  all  those  who  are  loyal  to  Him. 
The  greatest  tragedy  in  the  world  is  death,  and  there  is  no 
mitigation  of  the  force  of  the  blow  in  case  of  unmerited 
and  early  death.  But  that  is  not  necessary,  nor  is  it  in 
His  plan.  We  all  know  that  the  large  numbers  of  those 
that  die  young  are  solely  due  to  the  sin,  perversity,  and  the 
disloyalty  of  men.  God  is  only  waiting  for  help,  waiting 
for  us  to  act  up  to  the  light  we  have  already  gained.  But 
the  death  of  those  who  have  lived  out  the  "  allotted 
term  "  honorably  and  bravely,  is  to  self  and  loving  ones, 
like  sleep  at  the  tired  day's  ending, — none  questions  that 
it  is  fitting  and  right. 

The  next  greatest  tragedy  is  the  existence  of  the  "  de- 


REPRODUCTION.  163 

fective  classes."  Here  again  God  is  waiting  for  us  ;  these 
are  of  our  making.  When  we  are  determined,  they  may  be 
prevented  from  coming  into  existence.  The  diseases  that 
cause  so  many,  are  preventable  diseases,  and  the  social  sins 
that  cause  so  many  more  are  likewise  avoidable.  The 
hopelessly  idiotic  should  be  legally  and  kindly  killed.  The 
insane  may  be  made  comparatively  happy  and  inexpensive 
by  the  wise  kindness  of  their  guided  labor  ;  the  blind  and 
the  deaf  and  dumb  may  be  educated,  made  happy,  and 
self-supporting  with  a  little  kind  judgment  and  love  upon 
our  part. 

And  while  God  waits  upon  us  He  is  not  forgetful  even 
of  the  slightest  touches  of  affection,  but  is  ever  watchful, 
the  dear  Father!  to  heal  the  physical  hurts,  to  devise 
sweet  compensations  and  rests,  guarding  precipice-edges 
with  roses,  or  with  thorns  if  we  are  heedless,  with  death 
if  foolish  ;  suggesting  new  outlets  and  ways,  hiding  past 
griefs  in  present  joys,  and  above  all  rewarding  those  who 
love  Him  with  blessings  others  cannot  know  or  feel.  All 
good  literature  is  certification  of  these  facts,  and  in  all 
our  lives  are  they  exemplified  each  hour  of  every  day. 

But  in  three  things  especially  has  the  divine  kindness 
shown  itself  most  surpassingly :  these  are  the  beauty 
of  woman,  the  exquisiteness  of  love,  and  the  sweetness  of 
child-life  ;  their  presence  and  influence  in  our  life  are  the 
chief  of  its  attractions,  and  the  dominant  notes  of  its 
music.  Each  has  a  threefold  glowing  significance — each 
is  the  exultant  proof  of  victory  over  death,  the  smile  of 
satisfaction  reflected  from  the  very  face  of  God  as  He 
beholds  that  His  world  still  lives  ;  each  is  the  divine  bene- 
diction upon  His  children  who  have  been  obedient  and 
loyal,  because  they  are  rewards  given  only  to  the  good ; 
and,  finally,  each  is  but  a  glimpse  and  promise  of  the  rich- 


164       THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

ness  of  the  divine  life,  waiting  only  opportunity  to  be  re- 
vealed, and  eyes  appreciative  of  the  vision.  Because,  if 
such  wonders  are  shown  as  the  mere  certificate  and  p^roof 
of  a  difficulty  only  partially  conquered,  what  must  be  the 
unshown  wonders  awaiting  revelation,  when  all  difficulties 
are  fully  overcome,  and  there  is  the  unhindered  way  to 
realization  of  ideals,  hitherto  postponed  by  the  struggle 
with  fateful  circumstance  and  obstinate  material  ? 

Buddhistic  and  Christian  asceticism,  and,  whether  re- 
ligious, philosophic,  or  sensualistic,  pessimism  generally, 
has  represented  the  beauty  of  woman  and  sexual  love  as  the 
baiting  of  the  devil's  hook.  With  unexampled  clearness 
and  splendid  analysis  the  great  Schopenhauer  has  set 
forth  this  view,  and  if  he  had  but  put  God  in  place  of  his 
diabolic  will  (blind,  and  yet,  illogically  enough,  superbly, 
even  fiendishly,  cunning),  the  exposition  would  have  stood 
as  a  marvel  of  physiologico-philosophic  reasoning  and 
description.  It  is  perfectly  useless  and  philosophically 
wrong  to  blink  or  ignore  the  evident  partial  truth  of  this 
view.  From  the  Iliad  of  Homer  to  the  Iliad  of  to-day's 
suicide  the  fact  is  exemplified,  and  the  life  of  every  one 
of  us  has  been  either  moulded  or  deeply  influenced, 
directly  or  indirectly,  positively  or  negatively,  by  it.  It 
is  the  constant  theme  of  all  literature,  the  staple  subject 
of  all  joke,  the  secret  and  invisible  hand  ever  leading  to 
all  kinds  of  fortune  or  of  misfortune.  The  philosophy 
that  leaves  such  an  agent  unobserved  and  unexplained  is 
simply  no  philosophy  ;  and  the  theology  that  leaves  out 
such  a  plain  evidence  of  supernaturalism  is  no  theology. 
The  majority  of  philosophies  and  theologies  may  indeed 
be  quite  accurately  described  as  characterized  by  their 
failure  of  interest  in  what  God  is  most  interested  in. 
Their  concern  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  His. 


REPRODUCTION.  165 

To  every  adult  it  is  perfectly  evident  and  clear,  this 
purpose  of  the  sexual  instinct  and  mechanism.  But  with 
the  philosopher  many  questions  arise :  Is  the  entire 
mechanism  the  best  that  could  be  devised  ?  Are  the  evils 
resulting  from  its  working  chargeable  to  God  or  man  ? 
Do  the  good  results  more  than  balance  the  evil  results  ? 
What  about  the  future  ?  According  to  his  standpoint 
and  the  clearness  of  his  mind,  each  person's  answer  to 
such  questions  will  be  different.  My  own  would  be 
something  as  follows  :  The  mechanism  is  of  course  the 
direct  work  of  Biologos,  essentially  the  same  in  plant, 
animal,  and  man,  the  plain  method  of  the  intermediation 
of  reproduction.  Reproduction  in  its  entirety  is  a  device 
to  circumvent  death,  and  all  indirect  means  of  reaching  a 
distant  end,  all  obviation  of  difficulties,  are  apt  to  show 
the  machinery  quite  too  plainly,  and  reveal  the  quality  of 
the  "  makeshift."  Now  I  have  not  the  faintest  desire  to 
minimize  the  truth  of  the  "  bait-and-hook  philosophy  " — 
neither  must  it  be  exaggerated.  It  must  simply  be  recog- 
nized and  reasoned  about  with  entire  calmness  and  frank- 
ness, and  finally  utilized — improved,  if  you  please,  for  the 
evident  ends,  and  according  to  God's  plain  directions.  It 
is  an  infinitely  serious  matter,  despite  the  knowing  "  wink  " 
and  leering  smile.  When  one  comes  to  ask  the  cunning 
winker  in  what  his  self-satisfied  secret  knowledge  consists, 
the  "  open  secret  "  is  found  to  be  solely  a  'cute  little  trick 
of  stealing  the  bait  and  escaping  the  hook.  But  if  God  is 
fishing  for  fools,  as  the  routs  and  bachelors  grin,  the  most 
perfect  specimens  are  the  grinning  bait-stealers  themselves, 
because,  if  the  bad  metaphor  be  allowed,  the  bait  without 
the  hook  is  poison  and  death.  And  to  folly  is  always 
added  wickedness,  in  the  inevitable  suffering  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  victims. 


1 66      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

The  problem  for  God,  for  man,  for  progressive  humanity, 
and  for  the  philosopher,  is  the  most  perplexing  and  dan- 
gerous. I  judge  it  to  be  the  crucial  difficulty  in  humanity's 
future.  Civilization  is  more  endangered  in  its  solution 
than  by  plutocracy,  war,  anarchy,  and  other  evils  com- 
bined. France  to-day  is  a  progressive  victim  doomed 
to  extinction  solely  because  of  a  failure  to  solve  it,  and 
if  cities  were  not  recruited  from  the  country's  virtue, 
civilization  would  be  as  plainly  doomed  as  is  that  of 
France.  The  problem  is  simple :  to  preserve  and  keep 
progressive  the  human  race  by  means  of  an  instinct 
thoroughly  effective  for  non-self-conscious  beings,  but 
ineffective  for  free  and  selfish  beings  who  have  not 
learned  to  prefer  the  good  of  all  and  of  the  future  to 
their  own  selfish  pleasure.  In  loyal  monogamy  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  responsibilities  and  consequences  of  the 
functional  instinct  perpetuates  the  race  and  advances  its 
civilization  ;  but  not  only  is  genuine  monogamy  a  weaken- 
ing base,  but  loyalty  to  and  within  it,  I  mean  the  accept- 
ance of  its  natural  consequences,  is  far  from  the  rule. 
The  proportion  of  children  to  marriages  is  as  steadily  and 
uninterruptedly  declining  as  is  the  proportion  of  marriages 
to  population.  It  takes  but  a  little  general  intelligence 
or  physiologico-medical  knowledge  to  teach  the  secret  of 
the  trick ;  the  veriest  booby  has  learned  it,  and  Biologos 
is  confronted  with  the  terrible  danger.  Mankind  must 
through  !  .Self-consciousness  and  freedom  cannot  be  with- 
drawn, selfishness  cannot  be  transformed  into  love  of  the 
future  race  at  once,  and  the  frightful  gauntlet  must  be 
run.  Never  was  loyalty  to  God  more  needed,  never  was 
it  more  absent,  or,  in  this  particular,  inoperative.  The 
survival  of  the  fit  and  the  extinction  of  the  unfit,  even  if 
a  "  true  law  "  does  not  hold  here,  because  all  are  hastening 


REPRODUCTION.  1 67 

to  become  purposely  unfit,  and  because  the  chief  object 
of  the  process,  the  establishment  of  loyal  intelligence,  is 
thwarted  in  the  modern  divorce  of  loyalty  and  intelli- 
gence. The  most  intelligent  refuse  ;  the  most  loyal  are 
not  intelligent.  The  intelligent  can  instruct  the  loyal  in 
intelligence,  but  the  loyal  cannot  instruct  the  intelligent 
in  loyalty.  This  plainly  operates  in  extinguishing  the 
reproduction  of  the  most  civilized,  and  repeoples  the 
earth  with  the  uncivilized.  Has  humanity  (God)  here 
reached  an  impasse? 

The  problem  is  complicated  by  the  evident  breaking 
away  of  this  semi-automatonized  mechanism  from  God's 
control  during  the  process  of  humanization.  There  can 
be  no  possible  question  of  our  ascent  into  homo  sapiens 
from  the  condition  of  animalhood  ;  but  the  effectualizing 
of  the  advance  was  evidently  one  of  those  great  crucial 
struggles  of  God,  second  only  to  that  of  gaining  the  very 
first  foothold  in  matter.  What  the  exact  nature  of  that 
desperate  struggle  was,  its  length,  its  catastrophies  en- 
dured or  conquered, — of  this  we  can  only  guess ;  but  its 
scars  and  its  dim  memories  yet  mar  our  bodies  and  thrill 
our  minds.  One  of  the  most  striking  consequences  of  this 
struggle  was  a  change  in  the  working  of  the  reproductive 
instinct  that  now  characterizes  man  from  animal.  Held  in 
the  leash  of  the  divine  control  it  had  hitherto  been  abso- 
lutely subordinate  to  its  purpose.  Single  exercise  was 
only  dreamed  of  for  single  result.  But  in  man  we  sud- 
denly find  that  the  automatonization  has  broken  from 
control,  and  that  the  implement  of  purpose  has  elevated 
itself  into  an  object  in  itself,  without  restraint  of  season  or 
of  periodicity.  Was  the  process  of  humanization  so  long 
and  so  desperately  near  failure  that  only  by  this  emphasis 
of  the  instinct,  this  surcharging  it  and  making  it  override 


1 68      THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

all  control  and  restraint — that  only  by  this  outrageous 
exaggeration  was  wreckage  saved  ?  In  the  animal  the 
engine  had  an  unfailing  and  excellent  governor,  that  per- 
mitted just  the  inlet  of  steam  required  for  the  purpose  of 
the  machine  ;  assuredly  in  man  the  governor  has  been 
lost,  and  the  uncontrolled  mechanism  goes  pounding  on 
to  self-destruction,  some  accidental  utilization  of  "  power  " 
being  preserved  where  the  "shafting"  has  not  yet  broken. 

But  I  have  great  faith  in  the  divine  wisdom  and  inge- 
nuity. As  plainly  as  He  is  often  hard-pressed  and  near 
failure,  as  often  as  He  may  have  failed  temporarily  and 
by  that  route,  failure,  nevertheless,  is  not  yet  upon  us. 
The  justification  of  all  faith  is  present  success  :  We  are 
here  /  And  just  as  certainly  as  we  see  present  realization 
of  purpose,  just  so  plainly  do  we  see  unrealized  purpose 
being  outworked.  Let  us  meet  the  future  bravely  and 
trustfully, — and  helpfully.  How  will  the  depicted  danger 
be  met  and  the  problem  solved  ?  Perhaps  by  these  means : 

I.  I  do  not  think  it  fancy  or  fanciful  to  entertain  the 
hope  of  a  final  conquering  of  human  death,  in  which  case 
the  whole  reproductive  machinery  would  become  func- 
tionless  and  atrophied,  presenting  itself  as  one  of  the  many 
sets  of  organs  found  in  the  body,  remnant  and  outlived, 
the  relics  of  ancient  custom  and  use,  preserved,  perhaps, 
in  order  to  call  forth  the  conceited  scorn  of  future  "  scien- 
tific "  critics,  who  could  have  easily  done  it  all  so  much 
better.*  Considered  carefully,  there  is  about  the  mechan- 

*  But  a  better  and  more  sympathetic  manner  of  viewing  these  organs  is 
coming.  For  example,  "  How  reluctant  Nature  seems  in  some  cases  to  undo 
her  own  work  !  How  long  she  will  allow  a  specialized  organ,  with  the  cor- 
related instinct,  to  rest  without  use,  ready  to  flash  forth  on  the  instant, 
bright  and  keen-edged,  as  in  the  ancient  days  of  strife,  ages  past,  before 
peace  came  to  dwell  on  earth." — HUDSON. 


REPRODUCTION.  169 

ism  a  distinct  adventitiousness  of  character,  as  if  it  were 
all  a  temporary  makeshift,  a  slightness  of  connection  with 
the  vital  organs,  and  a  harmlessness  of  separation,  that 
more  than  hints  at  temporariness,  after-thought,  and  final 
laying-aside.  The  universal  fig-leaf  ;  the  universal  shame 
and  secrecy  ;  the  silent  contempt  of  this  self  for  that  self ; 
the  disgust  of  soul  at  sense  ;  the  commingled  loathing 
and  yet  doing — such  spontaneous  emotions  point  to  the 
fact  that  God  also  feels  that  way  too,  and  that  illogic  in- 
satisfaction  will  some  time  and  some  way  be  resolved  into 
logic  satisfaction. 

2.  The    great    harassing   and   all-controlling   task   and 
problem  of  nutrition  having  become  settled  by  scientific 
agriculture  and  scientific  intercommunication  (railroads, 
steamships,  etc.),  the  constant  care  and  labor  and  the  fre- 
quent tragedy  of  the  child-raising  of  the  past  will  disap- 
pear, immensely  over-balanced,  as  they  will  be,  by  the  joys. 
This  means  that    moderate   wealth,    home-comfort,    and 
financial   security,   are  fast  coming  within   the  reach  of 
multitudes,  and,  so  soon  as  the  temporary  intoxication  of 
freedom  and  selfishness  has  passed,  as  it  will  pass,  then 
the  little  solicitude  and  sacrifice  following  the  acceptance 
of  the  responsibility  will  be  gladly  welcomed.     It  will  be 
as  nothing  compared  to  the  infinite  sweetness  of  young 
life,  renascent  from  one's  own  failing  heart,  self-revivified, 
and    heaven  influshing  and  overflooding  the  new  child- 
wonder  with  the  divine  glory  of  its  own  incomprehensible 
purity  and  beauty. 

3.  The  hook-and-bait  idea  is  the  appropriate  and  char- 
acteristic theory  of  the  fisherman  type  of  mind,  /.  e.,  of  the 
people    who  are    tricking  others  by  cunning  device    for 
purely  selfish  use.     They  that  are  lurers  see  lures.     Those 
who  always  suspect  others  of  deceit  need  themselves  to  be 


1 70       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

sharply  watched.  In  any  partial  view  of  the  working  of 
the  function  of  sexualism  the  lure-aspect  is  quickly  caught, 
but  by  a  larger  and  a  higher  view  it  is  as  quickly  resolved 
into  larger  issues  and  a  higher  unity.  The  salient  fact 
consists  in  the  recognition  of  abundant  reward,  and  also  in 
the  progressive  gradation  of  reward,  in  consideration  of 
the  adoption  by  man  of  service  to  God's  purpose.  It  is 
plain  enough  that  the  beauty  and  charm  of  woman  arouses 
love ;  but  is  not  that  beauty  a  splendid  and  almost 
sufficient  reward  for  devotion  to  her,  and  to  what  her 
beauty  means  and  what  it  stands  for  ?  With  unsurpassed 
skill  the  arch  pessimist  has  shown  how  every  element  and 
attribute  of  that  beauty  points  to  and  mediates  one 
supreme  purpose  and  use.  Is  it  not  a  proof  of  exquisite 
kindness  and  love  that  it  is  there,  yours,  an  evident 
reward,  rather  than  not  there,  and  the  end  effected  without 
such  delightful  gratuity,  by  brute  force  alone,  as  is  done 
elsewhere,  as  could  doubtless  have  been  done  here  ?  Grati- 
tude, not  criticism,  is  certainly  the  fitting  reception  we 
should  give  both  gift  and  Giver.  "  But  the  beauty  fades 
so  soon  as  the  hook  is  in  our  gills."  Too  often  that  is 
true,  and  for  you  who  do  not  learn  the  lesson  that  physical 
beauty  is  but  a  beckoning  and  a  leading  onward  to  spirit- 
ual beauty,  the  fact  is  sad  enough.  In  further  answer,  sev- 
eral things  might  be  noted.  The  loss  of  physical  beauty 
by  women  is  doubtless  due  to  obviable  accidents  of  the 
"  struggle  for  existence,"  to  obviable  disease,  physical, 
emotional,  moral,  and  sociological,  all  temporarily  incident 
to  our  present  form  of  civilization.  We  may  look  forward 
to  a  speedy  prolongation  of  the  period  of  bloom  and  health 
so  fast  as  hygienic  life  of  all  kinds  is  realized.  The  pres- 
ent woman  who  does  not  lead  man  to  a  higher  delight  and 
a  better  heaven  than  a  sensual  one,  brings  to  self  and  hus- 
band a  Pandora-box  of  evils.  Under  every  other  city-roof 


REPRODUCTION.  171 

there  dwell  bitterness  and  wretchedness  because  one  of 
two,  or  both  alike,  have  not  seen  gradation  of  reward  and 
progressiveness  of  heaven,  and  because  they  have  set  heart 
on  the  lower  good  alone.  If  accepted  gladly  and  grate- 
fully for  what  they  are  worth,  the  charm  of  sensual  beauty 
and  the  deliciousness  of  sensual  love  are  exquisite  rewards 
and  indemnifications.  But  to  right  minds  and  loyal  hearts 
they  surely  and  naturally  lead  to  a  better  beauty  and  a 
larger  love  that  neither  fade  nor  falter,  and  that  bring 
preferable  rewards  and  a  purer  peace. 

The  chief  of  these  rewards  is  childhood,  in  which  heaven 
itself  is  loaned  unto  life.  In  the  child  the  human  and  the 
divine  parents  clasp  hands,  and  if  the  dream  of  abrogated 
death  should  ever  be  realized,  the  ingenuity  of  God  will 
be  taxed  to  the  uttermost  to  devise  a  bewildering  joy  suf- 
ficiently supernal  to  infil,  and  overflood  the  heart  haunted 
by  the  memory  and  the  tradition,  and  brooding  over  the 
grief  and  the  void  of  childlessness.  However  bitter  coming 
death  may  be,  we  look  down  through  tears  of  gratitude 
into  angelic  baby  faces  and  softly  thank  God  that  we  do  not 
live  in  the  deathless  and  childless  time  He  may  be  preparing. 

Next  to  beauty  itself  there  is  nothing  so  divine  and  of 
such  unearthly  wonderfulness  of  charm  as  mother-love. 
The  mother  and  child  are  the  inexhaustible  model  of 
artist-joy,  and  no  true  heart  can,  without  tears,  watch  the 
lambent  beauty  and  limpid  warmth  of  mother-eyes,  as 
her  babe  draws  from  the  God-made  breasts  the  milk  of  life. 
It  is  the  very  glory  of  God  made  flesh  and  dwelling 
amongst  us.  *  Motherhood,  physiological  and  psychical, 

*  "  Of  all  His  creatures  dear  to  God,  the  most  beloved  is  the  young  mother 
with  her  nursling  boy.  Of  all  earthly  loves,  the  most  holy  is  that  of  this 
mother  for  her  child.  Of  all  human  suffering,  the  most  poignant  is  that  of 
the  young  mother  struck  by  death  and  leaving  her  darling  to  a  probably 
tragic  fate. 

"  This  love  you  received,  this  love  you  gave,  this  grief  you  endured, — for 


1 72       THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

can  tell  more  about  biological  philosophy  than  all  the  books 
that  have  been  written  on  "  Evolution."  Everywhere  we 
go  the  vision  is  before  us, — for  what  animal  does  not  love 
its  young  ?  There  is  the  same  angelic  benignancy  in  the 
eyes  of  all  mothers,  animal  or  human,  because  both  mothers 
are  filled  and  thrilled  with  the  same  divinity.  One  God 
is  in  both  hearts  outworking  one  purpose  by  the  same 
emotion.  And  what  grief  so  deep  as  denied  motherhood  ? 
What  sight  so  sweet  as  the  stifled  hidden  love  of  child- 
lessness finding  opportunities  for  its  outgoing?  A  child's 
doll  is  a  holy  thing. 

It  is  not  only  the  mammae  of  the  childless  woman  that 
swell  with  milk  at  the  cry  of  another's  infant.  I  know  of 
an  instance  in  which  a  little  dog  made  a  moving  family 
most  miserable  by  its  whining,  moaning,  and  scratching, 
all  to  reach  a  mewing  kitten  kept  in  a  basket.  After 
several  days  of  this  torture  dog  and  kitten  came  together. 
The  little  doggie  had  had  no  puppies  for  several  years, 
but  the  kitten's  mewing  had  aroused  the  glands  to  secre- 
tion, and,  in  nursing  the  motherless  kitten,  the  dog's  satis- 
faction was  surely  as  great  as  was  that  of  the  foster-kitten. 
I  have  seen  an  unsatisfied  hen  drive  a  cat  away  from  her  kit- 
tens, guard,  and  watch  them,  fold  them  under  her  wings  at 
night  until  they  were  grown.  Hudson  tells  a  story  of  the 
splendid  heaven-exploring  chakar.  One  had  been  domesti- 
cated and  made  a  household  pet.  It  loved  young  chickens. 
A  few  were  given  him,  and  so  perfect  was  his  care  of  them 
that  many  were  allowed  him.  "  It  was  very  curious  to  see 

two  years, —and  of  these  years  each  bitter  day  was  an  agonized  prayer  that 
your  life  might  become  my  life,  and  your  Father  my  Father. 

"  Dear  dead,  undying.  Mother,  I  would  I  had  something  better  than  this 
poor  book  to  offer  as  a  sadly  belated  Amen  !  to  your  prayer." 

[From  "  A  DEDICATION."] 


RE  PROD  UC  TION.  1 73 

this  big  bird  with  thirty  or  forty  little  animated  balls  of 
yellow  cotton  following  him  about,  while  he  moved  majes- 
tically along,  setting  down  his  feet  with  the  greatest  care 
not  to  tread  on  them,  and  swelling  himself  up  with  jealous 
anger  at  the  approach  of  a  cat  or  a  dog." 

4.  Future  sociology  and   government   must   undertake 
a  certain  ordering  and    regulation  of    the    reproductive 
function.     God  is  waiting  to  turn  the  task  over  to  man. 
He  has  brought  man  to  self-consciousness  and  control, 
and  the  sway  of  His  instincts  will  hold  the-race  in  being 
until  the    deputization   of    His   power  shall  have   been 
effected.     Marriage  and   procreation  must,  by   stringent 
legislation,  be  absolutely   interdicted    to   those  without 
physical  and   moral  health.     This  necessary  step  should 
be  at  once  resolved  upon  and  carried  out  by  all  civilized 
governments.     There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  proposal 
to  deprive  criminals  of  the  procreative  power.     It  is,  per- 
haps, good  sociology  and  good  penology.     The  taxation 
of  bachelors ;  the   control    of    the  "  social  evil "  by  wise 
and  careful  legislation  ;  the  severe  punishment,  not  of  the 
poor  mother  alone,  or  chiefly,  for  criminal  abortion, — a 
fact,  alas  !  more  common  than  is  guessed ;    the  making 
disgraceful  the  "  legalized   prostitution  "  of  intentionally 
childless    marriage, — these   or   other   better    methods  of 
controlling  private  selfishness  for  the  common  and  future 
good  will  be   undertaken,  and  will  help  to  work  out  the 
salvation  sought  by  Biologos,  and  which  is  directly  denied 
Him,  because  of  the  enormous  difficulties  of  His  means 
and  of   His    obstacles.       Here    as   everywhere    God    is 
calling,  waiting,  begging,  for  the  sympathetic  help  of  loyal 
men. 

5.  Humanity  is   now  in  the  beginning  and  press  of  an 
advance  such  as  is  comparable  in  importance  only  to  its 


174       THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

spring  out  of  animalism.  The  great  unrevealed  mystery 
and  glory  we  dimly  prefigure  and  vaguely  surmise  under 
the  name  of  civilization,  is  pre-eminently  an  advance  of 
reason  and  of  the  common  well-being. 

General  enlightenment  and  comfort  stand  out  as  dis- 
tinguishing Occident  from  orient,  and  present  from  past. 
The  most  untrue  rant  of  anarchist,  or  wail  of  pessimist, 
is  itself  proof  of  progress  attained  and  unattained.  But 
all  this  is  only  the  preparation  of  the  groun^L  I  prophesy 
that  the  "  religion  of  the  future  "  will  be  summed  up  in 
the  words  intelligent  loyalty ;  loyalty,  individual  and 
collective  to  God,  and  to  the  purposes  of  God,  as  revealed 
in  the  scientific  study  of  biology  and  history.  Whether 
this  faith  of  the  future  will  grow  out  of,  or  attach  itself 
to  the  historic  continuity  of  Christianity,  no  one  can  say. 
If  Christian  leaders  were  wise,  the  historic  momentum 
of  that  great  and  sublime  faith  could  be  utilized.  The 
ground  is  all  prepared.  Christ's  teaching  lends  itself 
easily  to  this  utilization  and  application.  But  the  plas- 
ticity of  old  institutions  is  usually  sadly  deficient. 
The  Church  should  slough  its  trinitarianism,  its  credal  and 
aberrant  characteristics,  and  grasp  the  opportunity  that 
for  the  last  time  is  offered  it.  Christianity  has  been  the 
enemy  of  reason,  of  science,  and  of  progress.  Her  spirit 
has  not  been  the  promoting  but  the  hindering  spirit  of 
civilization.  It  is  useless  to  say  that  this  was  not  genuine, 
that  it  was  not  the  Christianity  of  Christ  that  accepted 
asceticism,  martyrized  Galileo,  and,  if  Luther  had  not 
been  a  Teuton,  would  have  quenched  him  with  the  ever- 
ready  fires  of  the  Inquisition.  The  argument  has  no 
force.  Let  it  be  admitted  or  denied.  The  question 
returns,  what  of  to-day  and  of  the  future  ?  With  not  the 
faintest  spark  of  antagonism,  with  perfect  absence  of 


REP  ROD  UC  TION.  1 7  5 

prejudice  for  or  against,  let  one  ask  if  on  the  part  of  pres- 
ent-day official  Christianity  there  are  any  signs  of  intel- 
lectual grasp  of,  and  Christlike  devotion  to,  the  real  prob- 
lems of  civilization  and  the  future?  The  Christ  of  Naz- 
areth naturally  and  excusably  knew  nothing,  betrayed  no 
slightest  hint  of  knowing  the  uses  of  government  in  bring- 
ing about  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  Earth,  of  the  scientific 
study  of  sociology  and  penology,  of  the  incarnation  of 
God  and  revelation  of  Himself  in  the  biological  world,  of 
the  power  of  education  and  of  printing,  of  the  glory  of 
Science,  of  the  means  of  commerce,  and  especially  of 
modern  mechanics  and  intercommunication,  to  help  on 
the  realization  of  his  ideal.  But  the  Christ  of  to-day  must 
know  and  grasp  these  opportunities  and  work  in  and 
through  them.  The  simple  question  of  the  existence  of 
institutional  Christianity  lies  in  her  possibility  of  plasticity 
to  adapt,  and  adopt,  and  in  her  vigor  to  seize  upon  these 
things.  Whether  she  do  this  or  not,  will  not  deflect 
humanity  from  its  evident  onward  march,  and  other  insti- 
tutional forms  and  spirit  will  take  up  the  work.  There  is 
no  escape  from  religion  ;  the  joy  of  human  existence  will 
depend  upon  its  vivid  reality,  the  motive  of  true  enlight- 
ened hearts  will  consist  in  loyalty  to  God,  the  living  God 
that  is  working  under  infinite  difficulties  in  and  all  about 
Us.  This  intelligent  and  active  loyalty  to  an  intelligent 
and  working  Father  will  catch  life,  and  fill  heart  after 
heart  until  it  will  become  the  renovating  thrilling  spirit 
of  coming  humanity.  With  this  enthusiastic  loyalty  the 
dangers  from  the  exaggeration  and  lawlessness  of  the 
great  instinct  upon  which  our  existence  depends  will  be 
slowly  solved,  order  and  control  reinstituted,  and  the  great 
work  of  the  overcoming  of  death  itself  be  undertaken. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 
CONCERNING   EVIL. 

THE  origin  of  evil  has  been  the  insolvable  problem  of 
all  theologians,  and  there  is  little  wonder  that  it  is 
so.  There  is  absolutely  no  escape  from  the  terrible 
logical  dilemma  in  which  they  found  themselves  placed. 
One  of  three  things  must  be  acknowledged  by  any  mind 
not  the  most  logically  depraved  :  either  God  is  incapable 
of  destroying  evil,  or  He  does  not  wish  to  do  so,  or  no  evil 
exists.  "  The  grinning  atheist  could  not  be  answered  " — 
from  the  "  good  father's  "  standpoint  at  least.  To  the  latter 
it  seemed  the  worst  sacrilege  to  question  God's  capability 
or  omnipotence.  Hence  all  theological  discussion  has 
centered  about  this  insoluble  question,  concerning  which 
there  has  been  even  more  hair-splitting  and  wrangling, 
more  intellectual  bravery  and  cowardice,  than  over  that 
other  sorry  problem,  the  existence  of  God.  The  faith- 
ful clung  to  their  omnipotent  and  infinitely  benevolent 
God,  as  they  should  have  done,  and  tried  to  minimize 
and  forget  the  frightful  fact  of  evil.  But  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  there  has  always  been  a  large  minority  of 
virile  intelligences  that  were  driven  into  atheism  rather 
than  deny  this  appalling  verity  of  evil.  Busied  with  their 
thought-spinning,  all  forgot  the  simplest  duty  and  easiest 
way  out  of  the  intolerable  mystery.  All  logic  choppers  are 
everlastingly  hunting  for  their  -spectacles  everywhere  ex-, 
cept  on  top  of  their  head.  One  minute's  observation  of 

176 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  1  77 

the  living  world  about  them  would  have  made  clear  the 
plainest  of  facts :  the  fact  that  every  organism  is  struggling 
against  difficulties  to  maintain  its  own  existence  and  to 
bring  others  like  itself  into  existence.  There  is  no 
mistaking  the  meaning  of  these  facts:  God  is  working 
under  difficulties  imposed  upon  Him.  But  to  the  poor 
theologian  this  would  have  been  impossible  to  see  or  to 
acknowledge.  It  would  have  been  too  scientific  an  obser- 
vation to  make,  i.  e.,  it  would  require  perception  of  fact,  a 
feat  quite  impossible  to  him,  and  it  would  have  destroyed 
his  ideally  conceived,  far-away  infinite  God.  Thankful  are 
we  that  our  minds  and  eyes  have  been  unbound  and  are 
opened  ;  that  facts  and  their  meaning  are  our  study,  and 
that  the  living,  acting  God  is  the  object  of  our  love. 
Dreams  and  word-weaving,  mental  tyranny  imposed  or 
chosen,  dead  gods  and  law-bound  life, — all  are  banished, 
and  with  eager  clear  brain,  fearless,  and  yet  reverent,  we 
walk  in  freedom  and  among  realities. 

As  to  God's  goodness,  I  would  be  perfectly  willing  to 
see  or  acknowledge  any  proof  or  intimation  of  moral  im- 
perfection. I  fear  no  truth,  but  love  it  above  all  things. 
Neither  critic  nor  apologist  of  God  would  I  be,  but  a 
knower.  And  still  I  say  that  a  keen  eye  penetrates  no 
mystery,  and  that  a  balanced  judgment  ponders  none, 
that  does  not  show  benevolent  love  at  work.  It  is  per- 
fectly possible,  for  example,  that  justice  should  be  stronger 
in  Him  than  love,  but  I  see  little  evidence  in  life  or  in 
history  whether  biological  or  human,  that  God  has  much, 
or  indeed  any,  of  what  we  call  justice.  He  is  not  unjust 
of  course,  if  He  were  He  would  not  be  kind  and  good,  as 
He  is  ;  but  every  indication  of  His  character  that  I  can 
see  shows  beauty  and  love  conquering  justice,  dragging 
him  to  play  as  laughing  children  do  a  make-believe-serious 


1/8      THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

dog  or  father.  The  Greek  Olympus  was  an  infinitely 
better  and  truer  idea  of  heaven  than  that  of  any  Christian 
painting  I  have  heard  of.  The  laughter,  the  fun,  the 
song,  the  play,  and  the  spontaneous  joy  that  breaks  out 
above  the  struggle  for  existence  whenever  this  bitter 
struggle  may  for  but  an  instant  be  evaded  or  forgotten, 
the  children,  the  birds,  the  flooding  of  utility  with  the 
sunshine  of  beauty, — all  speak  of  a  God  who  Himself 
laughs,  loves,  and  ornaments,  and  to  whom  the  morbid 
imaginings  of  medieval  hells  and  puritanical  heavens  are 
alike  repulsive. 

There  is  no  honest  eye  and  loyal  heart  that  can  blink 
the  tragedy  of  death.  To  lose  the  suppleness  and  sense 
of  elation  of  strength  ;  to  feel  the  labor  of  energy  coming 
on  and  growing  greater ;  to  be  compelled  to  watch  and 
guard  against  our  little  personal  weaknesses  and  dangers ; 
to  feel  the  waning  not  only  of  physical  zest,  but  of  mental 
and  emotional  verve  and  Man  ("he  begins  to  die  who 
quits  his  desires  ") ;  to  know  that  the  end  is  coming,  yon- 
der, soon  maybe,  a  little  later  certainly, — all  this  admits 
of  little  mitigation, — we  shudder  and  brush  away  the  tear 
and  the  thought.  Well !  I  frankly  say  the  shudder  is 
God's  shudder.  It  is  sad  and  tragical,  and  the  tragedy  of 
it  crept  out  of  God's  heart  into  yours.  But  it  is  not  God's 
fault,  and  He  is  doing  all  he  can  to  circumvent,  to  obviate, 
and  to  overcome  it.  To  the  circumvention  of  death  He 
has  superadded  a  royal  bounty  of  beauty  and  blessing  in 
the  loveliness  of  love,  of  flowers,  of  maternal  love,  of 
woman,  and  of  all  that  rightfully  pertains  to  reproduction. 
Gratuity  is  heaped  upon  gift  until  the  eyes  are  dazzled 
and  the  heart  sated, — so  kindly  thoughtful  has  He  been, 
and  so  solicitous  to  make  us  forget  the  ugliness  of  His 
enemy  and  of  ours,  and  to  recompense  us  for  the  pain  we 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  179 

are  put  to  in  dying  and  in  passing  our  life  on  to  the  child. 
Death  is  almost  unmixed  evil,  the  price  paid  to  matter  for 
a  temporary  service.  Its  scientific  aspect  is  simply  that 
Biologos  has  been  unable  to  maintain  permanency  of  nutri- 
tion of  the  individual  organism.  He  has  attained  it  for 
the  type  by  the  device  of  reproduction.  There  is  hope 
that  it  may  be  yet  attained  for  the  individual. 

The  same  difficulty  of  nutrition  explains  a  large  part 
of  the  evil  of  disease.  Every  -pathy  is  at  bottom  a 
trophopathy.  Much  disease  is  due  to  man's  physical  sin, 
much  more  to  his  moral  sin,  and  still  much  more  to  his 
intellectual  sin  of  improvidence.  But  there  still  remains 
a  large  proportion  that  must  be  charged  to  the  inherent 
difficulty  of  the  incarnating  labor,  /.  e.,  it  is  fundamentally 
nutritional,  and  for  long  will  remain  unavoidable.  Disease 
and  subnormal  length  of  life  are  appallingly  evident  in  the 
human  being.  Such  is  the  expense,  the  difficulty  of  hu- 
manization. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  pathogeny  that  needs  to  be 
lighted  up  by  some  philosophical  mind :  diseases  are 
often  hyperphysiological  in  absolute  etiology,  and  their 
prophylaxis  will  be  found  to  consist  in  the  laws  and  rules 
of  the  best  psychic  life.  I  mean  that  the  obviation  of 
disease  and  the  progress  of  physical  health  are  attained 
only  by  means  that  obviate  moral  disease  and  insure 
spiritual  health.  Take  the  entire  class  of  crowd-diseases. 
Too  great  crowding  also  produces  psychopathy,  and  hin- 
ders mental  stability  and  progress.  We  must  be  much 
alone  for  the  best  health,  either  of  soul  or  of  body. 
Extend  the  term  to  include  most  contagious  diseases, 
typhoid,  cholera,  diphtheria,  etc.,  because  most  such  dis- 
eases are  crowd-diseases  in  a  strict  sense  of  the  word.  The 
open  sky,  not  roofs,  above  ;  the  pure  ground,  not  pavements, 


ISO     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

beneath  ;  the  free  space,  not  poisoned  air,  about  us,  are  as 
necessary  to  the  best  spiritual  as  to  the  best  physical  health. 
The  intimate  relation  of  all  contagious  diseases  to  unclean- 
liness  and  of  wound-healing  to  cleanliness,  also  points  the 
same  lesson.  There  is  a  close,  though  not  a  rigid,  and  a 
progressive  relation,  of  cleanliness  of  body  and  cleanliness 
of  mind.  In  luetic  disease  the  connection  of  moral  and 
physical  evil  is  most  true  and  most  awful  to  behold,  and 
allows  the  suggestion  to  arise  that  here  almost  alone  in 
the  entire  range  of  biological  phenomena  does  one  meet 
with  a  fact  that  suggests  vindictiveness,  or  at  least  a  puni- 
tive character  in  God.  As  in  regeneration  one  sees  the 
astounding  evidence  of  His  hand,  in  boldest  miracle  of 
action,  so  in  venereal  disease,  one  seems  to  see  the 
clenched  fist.  Only  the  physician  sees  and  knows  what 
may  not  be  described,  but  to  his  keen  and  kindly  eyes  a 
thousand  mysteries  are  revealed,  and  a  thousand  tragedies 
are  justified,  that  stun  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  ordinary 
citizen.  In  pulmonary  disease,  tuberculous  or  not,  the 
ultimate  causation-agencies  are  occupations,  habits,  and 
conditions  that  kill  the  lungs  of  the  soul  and  of  the  body. 
There  is  a  multitude  of  conclusive  evidence  that  the 
bacillus  tuberculosis  and  most  other  pathogenetic  bacteria 
are  powerless  against  properly  developed  and  normally 
vitalized  tissues.  If  given  proper  blood  and  air  and  exer- 
cise, the  lungs  offer  no  nidus  or  hostelry  to  the  little 
enemies,  and  proper  blood,  air,  and  exercise  also  bring  a 
power  of  mental  and  moral  respiration  that  resists  the 
horde  of  psychic  bacilli  hovering  to  destroy  the  spirit  as 
well.  If  this  is  all  true,  then  the  healthy,  full-breathing, 
pure-air-loving  lung  is  the  standard,  and  the  bacillus  is 
the  agent  that  punishes  the  sin  of  falling  below  that  ideal. 
If  this  agent  were  not  operative,  the  narrow-chested,  city- 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  l8l 

minded,  deoxygenated  degenerates  would  be  the  parents 
of  a  progressively  degenerating  race,  and  a  successful 
Koch  its  worthy  high-priest.  Fortunately  the  "  lymph  " 
did  not  fulfil  expectation.  How  far  the  great  historic 
epidemics  and  scourges  of  the  past  and  the  diseases  of 
the  present  have  been  the  result  of  moral  sin,  is  beyond 
our  power  to  discover.  That  the  brutal  selfishness  of 
rulers  and  aristocracies  has  been  a  most  potent  agency  in 
producing  famines  and  wretchedness,  the  prolific  parents 
of  disease,  is  too  plainly  evident  to  question,  and  of  which 
the  France  of  the  past  and  the  Russia  of  to-day  are  lurid 
examples.  Then,  too,  there  are  a  number  of  diseases  that 
in  a  special  sense  may  be  called  civilization  diseases,  scle- 
roses of  many  kinds,  cardiac  and  renal  inabilities  to  endure 
the  strain  put  upon  these  organs,  neurasthenias,  psychoses, 
hysterias,  hypertrophies,  hyperplasias  due  to  alcohol,  ex- 
citement, physiological  misuse  and  disuse, — all  flowing 
from  or  intercurrent  with  ethical  misuse  and  disuse.  The 
most  incongruous  absurdity  imaginable  is  a  materialist-phy- 
sician. But  the  inquiry  is  too  vast  and  as  yet  too  vague, 
for  more  than  mere  allusion  to  its  possibility.  In  a  world 
in  which  the  entire  biological  process,  every  inch  of 
ground  gained  or  to  be  gained,  is  gotten  by  infinite  watch- 
fulness and  ingenuity,  ethics  must  necessarily  be  largely 
hygiene,  because  every  physiological  question  is  ethical, 
and  every  ethical  question  is  physiological.  God  Himself 
being  the  great  physiologist,  His  power  and  means  of 
incarnation  being  physiological,  moral  evil  and  pathology 
quickly  reach  approximate  identity. 

All  of  the  evils  attendant  and  consequent  upon  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  and  the  struggle  for  existence  are  easily 
recognized  as  subordinate  to  the  nutritional  difficulty  of 
Biologos  in  getting  and  in  retaining  foothold,  or  to  the 


1 82      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ideal  of  progress  that  all  sacrifices  mediate.  The  bellum- 
omnium-contra-omnes,  and  the  nature-red-with-tooth-and- 
claw  philosophy,  as  all  now  recognize,  has  been  greatly 
over-emphasized.  There  is  no  doubt  plenty  of  fact-basis 
for  the  theory,  but  when  seen  in  large  and  calmly,  it  is 
all  presently  necessary  to  preservation  of  balances,  and 
brings  about  perfection  of  organism  together  with  progress 
of  type.  All  things  considered,  the  death  of  the  super- 
numerary, and  of  the  less  fit  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
world,  when  it  assures  the  realization  of  right  purpose,  is 
itself  right.  The  pessimistic  finding  that  the  process  does 
not  lead  to  survival  of  the  fit  and  to  ultimate  progress,  is, 
like  many  things,  "  critic  and  whipper-snapper,"  simply 
untrue. 

"  The  slow  movement  of  history,  the  stagnant  nations, 
the  dead  levels,  the  non-progressiveness,  or  even  back- 
slidings,"  and  all  that  !  Readily  acknowledged  !  But  have 
we  realized  His  difficulties?  Have  we  even  acknowledged 
the  existence  of  them  till  now?  Are  we  wiser  or  more 
powerful  or  more  ingenious  than  He  ?  Would  He  not 
have  hastened  if  He  could?  Is  it  not  He  that  has  brought 
the  present  success  about,  even  so  late  as  it  is  ?  Are  not 
we  the  results  ?  Nay,  is  it  not  in  reality  early,  and  has  He 
not  truly  hastened  ?  When  so  much  that  is  good  is  seen, 
may  we  not  agree  that  the  bad  and  unseen  has  been  as 
good  as  it  could  have  been  ?  Not  His  the  responsibility, 
but  the  unconquerable  irresponsiveness  of  His  material. 
No  blame  to  Him,  but  infinite  gratitude  for  a  thousand 
huge  difficulties  overcome,  and  for  success  now  and  yet 
to  be  wrung  from  Fate  and  Death. 

"  But  men  are  wicked  and  life  is  embittered  by  their 
hideous  selfishness."  Sometimes,  and  too  often  true,  but 
not  all  men,  and  not  any  man  irremediably  or  wholly.  How 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  183 

often,  if  we  will  to  see,  do  we  not  learn  how  good  even 
our  worst  enemies  and  the  worst  of  men  are,  and  how  true 
it  is  that  only  opportunity  is  lacking,  the  spring-warmth 
of  love  and  kindness  from  us,  for  example,  to  make  good- 
ness like  a  cactus-bloom  burst  from  the  very  heart  of  thorns 
and  ugliness.  Do  not  believe  men  are  wholly  bad,  or  that 
they  love  evil.  There  is  doubt  in  our  minds  as  to  what 
things  are  evil,  and  what  good ;  conditions  unhealthy  to 
body  and  soul  have  warped  and  stunted  and  deranged  the 
mechanism,  but  such  conditions  are  in  process  of  passing, 
and  man's  spirit,  a  graft  of  the  divine  life,  turns  loyally  to 
the  divine  ideal,  and  turns  just  so  fast,  and  just  so  far 
as  it  may. 

People  flatter  themselves  with  the  illusory  greatness  of 
their  adversity,  their  martyrdom  at  the  hands  of  niggard 
fate  or  of  cruel  men.  This  heightens  their  little  heroism, 
and  makes  them  seem  greater  to  themselves.  We  are  all 
quite  expert  at  playing  the  courtier  to  our  own  ego.  But 
after  all  we' well  know  in  our  hearts  that  most  of  the 
really  harmful  evils  of  our  lives  are  the  products  of  our 
own  folly  and  wrong-doing.  Another  can  harm  us  very 
little  unless  indeed  we  kindly  aid  him.  A  little  careful 
introspection  shows  us  that  very  often  we  love  the  very 
faults  in  ourselves  whence  flow  the  conditions  at  which  we 
grumble.  We  do  not  desire  to  be  better,  and  would  be 
sorry  if  we  were  forced  to  better  ourselves.  Perhaps 
there  is  a  subtle  wisdom  in  this  that  smothers  our  smile. 
Every  character  has  its  own  laws  of  balance,  and  its 
peculiar  difficulties  of  function,  known  only  to  the  silent 
wisdom  of  "  the  unconscious,"  and  our  little  obstinacies, 
frictions,  and  malfunctions  are  often  devices  for  prevent- 
ing greater  evils  and  of  keeping  well  on  the  track. 

Then  how  well  we  know  that,  if  we  could  rob  them  of 


1 84      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

it,  the  wealth  or  the  power  that  we  envy  in  others  would 
be  our  own  undoing.  How  few  people  there  are  that  are 
not  injured  by  their  prosperity.  They  may  very  rarely 
use  their  money  or  their  position  to  help  others,  but  by 
positive  wrong  or  by  negative  non-doing,  to  self-injury 
they  add  injury  of  others.  For  the  present  degree  of 
elevation  of  personal  character  there  is  entirely  too  much 
exceptional  and  personal  "  prosperity."  No  greater  kind- 
ness could  one  wish  most  of  his  friends  than  misfortune. 
The  crude,  hard,  cruel  plebeianism  of  "  successful  " 
people ;  the  waste  of  their  leisure ;  their  emulation  of 
people  more  disgusting  than  themselves  ;  their  greedy 
hunger  for  more  ;  their  waste  of  what  they  have  ;  the  de- 
gradation of  their  petty  imitators  ;  the  hiding  of  their  in- 
terior poverty  under  the  hollow  show  of  luxury,  and  of 
their  irreligiousness  under  the  impious  hypocrisies  of  re- 
ligion,— ^all  such  things  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  without 
accepted  accountability  deputed  power  ends  in  evil  done 
and  evil  suffered.  Riches  without  character  to  use  them 
wisely  either  for  self  or  for  others  is  the  consummation  of 
evil,  and  that  government  or  that  society  that  produces 
this  condition  so  easily  as  do  ours  is  travelling  a  danger- 
ous road. 

Not  only  is  wealth  harmful  to  most  people,  but  poverty 
is  a  blessing  to  most.  The  majority,  as  regards  the  use- 
fulness and  excellence  of  their  character,  have  all  the  pros- 
perity "  they  can  stand."  If  the  poor  could  forget  envy, 
and  fill  their  hearts  with  joy,  how  delightful  their  lot ! 
Happiness,  as  any  darkey  or  dog  might  show  us,  has  little 
to  do  with  circumstance,  but  is  instead  a  question  of  tem- 
perament ;  the  most  miserable  of  people,  as  we  all  know, 
are  the  well-to-do.  The  "  poverty  of  wealth,"  is  the  most 
pitiable  of  all  poverties.  But  there  is  nothing  like  want  and 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  185 

struggle  to  make  us  sympathetic  and  heedful  of  others. 
It  is  only  through  suffering  that  we  see  the  mysteries  of 
life,  and  the  goodness  of  our  fellows,  of  the  world,  and  of 
God.  There  are  few  people  that  would  not  be  the  better 
for  a  severe  illness  every  few  years.  Of  two  sisters,  once 
alike  in  youth  and  health,  how  inexpressibly  better  and 
nobler  the  one  that  has  passed  through  trial  and  suffering. 
Of  t\vo  boys,  one  the  product  of  the  city  and  of  comfort, 
the  other,  of  the  country  and  of  aspiring  struggle,  how 
infinitely  superior  the  latter.  Want  and  the  overcoming 
of  want  have  given  him  eyes  to  see,  a  heart  to  feel,  and 
a  hand  to  do,  and  upon  these  things  the  destinies  of  the 
coming  generation  depend.  First  of  all  other  attributes 
of  God  must  be  placed  that  of  activity.  He  is  a  worker 
and  therefore  is  He  happy.  The  ennui  of  the  divinity  of 
the  old  theologians  must  have  been  as  insupportable  and 
as  pernicious  as  that  of  a  modern  professional  human 
do-nothing.  But  the  uses  of  adversity  have  been  the 
subject  of  homilies  since  preaching  was,  although  its  cor- 
relate, the  utility  of  much  that  is  called  evil,  is  hardly 
acknowledged,  and  less  still,  its  necessity. 

The  evils  of  the  world  are  therefore  divisible  into  two 
great  groups  : 

I.  The  unavoidable,  or  those  inherent  in  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  incarnation  process.  Death,  at  least  for 
the  present,  must  come  to  all ;  many  diseases  belong 
here;  the  necessary  exaggerations  of  automatism,  and  the 
hypertrophy  of  functions ;  those  unavoidably  springing 
from  the  agencies  mediating  progress,  such  as  the  animal 
struggle  for  existence,  the  nutritional  difficulties  in  a  world 
of  physics,  etc.  Then,  behind  all,  is  the  control  of  fate 
and  of  accident.  The  whole  incarnation-process,  at  present 
at  least,  is  an  adaptation  to  and  into  a  world  whose  large 


1 86     THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

forces  it  cannot  touch  or  control.  The  secret  of  that 
process  lies  in  the  use  of  the  infinitesimal  forces  of  nature  ; 
only  by  the  astonishing  indirections  of  cytology  and  of 
animal  life  can  Biologos  reach  a  slight  degree  of  control 
of  the  larger  or  molar  forces,  and  only  through  man  can 

i  He  increase  a  little  that  power,  and  make  its  use  serve 
purpose.  Thus  the  foundations  of  our  earthly  house 
of  life  rest  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  giant  forces  of  the 
inorganic  world.  Every  quiver  from  below  sends  a 
shudder  through  all  living  things.  Neither  man  nor  God 
has  any  slightest  control  of  the  size,  the  qualities,  or  the 
supplies  of  atoms  ;  any  control  of  the  sun's  heat,  or  of  his 
forces  of  attraction,  electricity,  and  magnetism  ;  of  the 
composition  of  the  earth's  crust ;  of  such  conditions  as 
earthquakes,  tides,  rainfall,  or  cold  ;  of  the  constituents  of 
the  atmosphere,  and  so  on,  upon  which  are  based  the  in- 
finitely ingenious  adaptations  and  difficult  maintenance  of 
all  living  things.  When  the  blows  and  tragedies  of  these 
fates  fall  upon  us  we  may  uselessly  blame  dead  forces,  but 
the  truer  attitude  is  to  pick  up  the  work  again,  help  each 
other,  and  especially  rally  loyally  about  our  Great  Helper, 
who  Himself  suffers  with  us,  and  who  is  more  able  than  we 
to  build  victories  out  of  the  appalling  routs  and  the  most 
chaotic  ruins. 

f  2.  Finally  we  have  the  evils  that  are  subordinate  to  the 
mediate  stages  of  the  process.  These  are  mostly  tem- 
porary and  in  time  will  be  avoided.  In  the  interim  these 
arouse  our  energies  of  life,  condition  our  progress,  and 
are  educative.  Such  evils  are  the  wastage  and  wreckage 
of  young  life  ;  the  less  fierce  aspects  of  the  struggle  for 
existence ;  the  preventable  diseases ;  the  unequal  and 
unjust  distribution  of  property ;  the  hypertrophy  of  ego- 
tism and  individualization  (a  consequence  of  the  furious 


CONCERNING  EVIL.  l8/ 

struggle  into  humanization) ;  the  tyranny  of  rulers,  and 
many  such.  The  unrolling  of  the  panorama  of  earthly  life 
is  a  process ;  in  a  rigid  sense  of  the  word  all  imperfection 
is  evil ;  but  any  motived  process  implies  temporary  im- 
perfection and  direction  somewhither.  Moreover,  the 
possession  of  freedom  implies  some  misuse  of  that  power, 
otherwise  we  should  be  the  merest  tools  and  ruled  by 
external  forces  alone.  To  learn  right  use,  presupposes 
some  abuse.  We  learn  to  stand  by  having  fallen  many 
times.  Experimentation  and  experience  imply  failure, 
but  they  are  the  conditions  of  functional  freedom. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

JUSTIFICATION    OF     THE     INCARNATION 
PROCESS. 

FOLLOWING  close  upon  the  question  of  evil  comes 
the  pessimist's  conclusion  that  life  taken  in  its  en- 
tirety is  evil,  and  that  no  life  is  preferable  to  any 
life  whatever.  This,  of  course,  is  unscientific,  because  it  is 
an  abuse  of  induction.  It  posits  a  universal  conclusion 
upon  a  very  limited  gathering  of  facts.  Even  if  all  life  in 
the  past  and  that  the  pessimist  could  know  in  the  present 
were  not  preferable  to  nonentity,  it  would  not  prove  that 
all  coming  lives  would  be  thus  condemnable.  But  the 
pessimist's  syllogism  is  an  outrageous  non  sequitur.  We 
can  excuse  Buddha  for  assenting  to  the  logic,  but  the 
modern  echoist  is  contemptible.  We  all  know  that  with 
the  vast  majority  of  people  there  is  more  happiness  than 
unhappiness.  One  proof  is  that  they  continue  to  live. 
Though  Schopenhauer  wrote  Nichts  over  the  future,  and 
said  Nichts  was  preferable  to  Wille,  he  nevertheless  stuck 
to  Wille,  and  the  whole  machinery  of  Nirvana  and  the 
struggle  to  reach  it  has  little  more  raison  d ' etre  than  an 
excuse  for  continuance  of  what  the  creed  said  was  un- 
worthy of  continuance.  Every  suicide  who  clinches  the 
pessimistic  argument  with  the  evidence  of  sincerity,  we 
also  see,  acts  from  poor  reasons.  He  fails  to  perceive  facts 
in  their  proper  relations,  and  to  adapt  his  resolves  so  that 
they  shall  be  in  harmony  with  them.  Suicide  is  nothing 

188 


JUSTIFICATION  OF   THE    INCARNATION  PROCESS.      189 

but  folly,  a  child's  pouting,  and  /  wont  play,  because  one 
cannot  have  things  his  own  selfish  way. 

The  question  however,  arouses  the  further  inquiry  as  to 
the  ultimate  reason  for  the  whole  process  of  incarnation. 
Few  people  see  any  object  in  their  own  life,  or  in  the  life- 
process  of  the  world.  The  beliefs  in  the  vacuous  heaven 
and  the  do-nothing  God  exaggerate  the  tendency,  and 
some  day,  like  Dore's  neophyte,  the  startled  mind  flashes 
a  wild  glance  of  inquiry  about  itself,  while  cosmic  fear 
congeals  the  blood  with  the  panic  of  discovered  universal 
objectlessness.  It  makes  the  heart  stand  still  with  curd- 
ling horror  to  feel  that  blind  forces  and  processes  rule  all, 
and  that  our  little  lives  are  driven  eddies  of  the  dust  of 
chance  in  the  gust  of  circumstance.  Frightened  by  the 
thought,  countless  numbers  of  minds  have  shrunk  trem- 
bling back  into  the  consolations  of  an  authoritative  religion, 
or  dashed  with  brute  bravado  into  the  equally  tragic  death 
of  atheism  and  pessimism.  If  I  should  be  the  means  of 
showing  one  "  neophyte "  a  third  and  infinitely  truer 
course,  I  would  consider  the  sacrifices  made  to  bring  this 
little  book  to  his  notice,  and  even  those  of  my  life  itself, 
as  worthily  rewarded.  I  would  like  to  spare  my  unknown 
brother  the  suffering  of  gaining  the  lesson  in  the  way 
that  I  have  gained  it. 

The  bounteousness  and  benevolence  of  the  Father  of 
the  living  world  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  whilst  each  form 
or  type  of  form  is  more  or  less  dependent  upon  other  living 
things,  each  is  so  filled  and  lighted  with  satisfaction  that 
it  is  "  its  own  excuse  for  being."  It  satisfies  not  only  the 
self,  but  it  also  satisfies  the  on-looker,  even  if  there  were 
no  4<  beyond."  This  is  especially  true  of  the  vegetable 
world.  Whoever  has  stood  in  the  center  of  a  landscape 
devoid  of  all  animal  and  plant-life  will  always  carry  with 


THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

him  a  realizing  sense  of  the  homelessness,  horror,  and 
void  that  our  world  would  show  without  a  living  green 
thing  on  its  surface.  Our  own  satisfaction  and  delight  in 
the  inexhaustible  loveliness  of  grass  and  grain  and  tree 
cannot  lessen  while  the  planet  is  our  home.  But  we 
must  not  forget  that  it  is  also  God's  satisfaction  and 
delight,  and  that  it  was  His  before  it  was  ours,  and 
that  it  is  so  to  us  because  it  was  and  is  so  to  Him. 
He  taught  us  all  we  know  of  agriculture,  of  gardening, 
and  of  forestry.  As  we  look  through  a  powerful  teles- 
cope at  the  dead  moon  we  justify  God's  work  of  the 
plant-world  by  our  shudder  at  the  desolation  there,  and 
by  our  wish  that  it  might  be  as  rich  with  grass  and  tree  as 
our  delightful  home.  If  we  may  not  penetrate  the  divine 
mind  or  discover  His  motive  as  we  may  suppose  Him  pre- 
pairing  for  the  beginnings  of  living  forms  here,  we  may 
rest  content  with  the  childlike  thought  that  it  is  infinitely 
better  that  our  world  should  be  decked  and  beautified 
with  green  life  as  it  is,  rather  than  be  as  desolate  as  the 
moon  is. 

For  my  part  I  would  be  quite  contented  to  let  the  idea 
of  final  cause  rest,  happy  to  know  God's  "  most  ultimate  " 
motive  may  have  been  simply  the  play  of  spirit,  and  that 
creative  activity  is  the  natural  inherent  attribute  of  his 
being.  But  every  act  of  His  looks  to  a  beyond.  Any  idea 
that  our  poor  minds  can  shape  as  to  "  that  far-off  divine 
event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves,"  must  fall  short 
of  what  that  event  will  prove  to  be.  The  fact  of  process,  of 
the  whole  proceeding  somewhither,  is  amazingly  evident. 
Some  purpose  is  gloriously  clear,  but  just  what  it  is  we 
can  only  cloudily  gather,  and  we  know  that  in  such  far 
visions  all  but  the  largest  outlines  must  be  dim.  We  dare 
not  be  dogmatic ;  even  in  our  little  scientific  and  mechan- 


JUSTIFICATION  OF   THE    INCARNATION  PROCESS,      igi 

ical  discoveries  we  do  not  at  first  see  what  will  be  their 
best  and  final  uses.  When  we  observe  the  mechanism 
and  functions  of  a  grass-blade,  of  insect  and  of  animal, 
of  man  and  the  established  harmony  of  the  world  of 
these  things,  we  may  be  more  than  certain  that  the  Mind 
that  could  do  all  this,  and  the  unseen-more  of  the  future, 
is  incapable  of  working  aimlessly,  and  that  purpose  runs 
through  all  and  will  so  run  to  the  end  of  time. 

o 

The  essential  secret  of  incarnation  was  discovered  and 
the  fundamental  problem  solved  with  the  plant.  With 
that  was  proved  the  ability  to  build  living  forms  out  of 
dead  atoms  and  mechanic  forces.  But  onward  presses 
the  hidden  design  !  The  walking  plant,  the  animal,  is 
evolved.  By  the  secret  of  appropriating  the  products  of 
plant-life,  the  problem  of  the  nutrition  of  the  moving 
mechanism  is  solved,  and  the  higher  sensations  are  born, 
seeing  and  hearing  being  tools  and  aids  of  motility.  Ever 
onward  !  Out  of,  and  by  further  use  of  the  animal  pro- 
duct comes  man,  with  his  new  endowments  of  mental 
vision,  and  his  beginning  purposive  control  of  all 
mechanic  forces,  but  especially  of  molar  motion.  Civili- 
zation is  first  a  fixing  and  stabilizing  of  the  certainty  and 
uniformity  of  nutrition,  but  it  is  already  largely  being 
turned  to  ends  beyond  those  of  mere  utility.  Pure 
science,  higher  knowledge,  discovery  and  the  control  of 
various  natural  agencies,  are  seemingly  preparing  the  way 
for  a  progressive  mastery  over  the  entire  world  of  me- 
chanic forces.  Every  discovery  lured  into  being  perhaps 
by  hope  of  reward  or  of  its  usefulness  to  man,  seems 
destined  to  pass  beyond  any  simply  utilitarian  aspect,  and 
to  be  gathered  to  a  higher  aim.  For  example,  every  dis- 
covery in  mechanics  was  needed  to  perfect  the  best  astro- 
nomical instruments.  But  every  discovery  points  to  increas- 


IQ2      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ing  dominion  by  man  over  the  physical  universe.  Inter- 
planetary communication  is  not  absurd,  and  even  more 
than  that.  Every  study  of  life  on  the  globe  shows  pro- 
gressive power  to  build  up  living  forms  out  of  dead  mat- 
ter. More  and  ever  more  of  the  atoms  of  the  physical 
world  are  being  caught  up  and  pressed  into  the  control 
and  service  of  Life.  All  below  man  attests  progressive 
control  of  molecular  and  atomic  forces,  and  through  this 
and  through  man's  science,  there  is  dazzling  proof  of 
coming  control  over  masses  of  matter  and  oceans  of 
imponderable  forces. 

What  is  the  dim  but  ever-clearing  suggestion  and  indi- 
cation? The  vivification  of  a  dead  universe  and  the 
purposive  use  of  mechanic  forces.  Uselessness  is  to  be 
changed  to  usefulness,  objectlessness  to  rational  ends, 
meaninglessness  to  significance,  death  to  life.  In  His  in- 
finite love  and  activity  God  seems  determined  to  transform 
even  the  dead  stones  and  dead  worlds  of  a  dead  universe 
to  the  living  image  of  Himself.  Without  life  and  its  at- 
tendant purposiveness  the  physical  universe  has  utterly 
no  use  or  meaning.  It  has  always  existed,  perhaps  with 
the  great  pulse-waves  of  eternity — long  integrations  and 
disintegrations  described  by  Spencer,  but  all  the  mere 
empty  play  of  mechanic  forces,  and,  without  life,  leading 
absolutely  nowhither.  With  the  intervention  of  Bio- 
logos,  however,  entirely  new  elements  are  added,  all  is 
suddenly  changed  and  the  world  is  "palpitant  with 
significance,  interest,  and  purpose.  Physical  forces  are 
reined  and  ruled  by  intelligent  design.  The  control  of 
matter  and  of  its  aimless  forces  is  the  summarization  of 
the  primary  function  of  both  God  and  man.  If  by  God, 
then  of  course  by  man,  because  man  may  be  defined  as 
first  the  tool,  then  the  deputy,  and  finally  the  co-worker 


JUSTIFICATION  OF   THE   INCARNATION  PROCESS.      193 

of  God, — steps. in  the  extension  of  the  control  of  matter 
by  spirit.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  conscious  discoveries 
and  inventions  of  man  already  made  are  but  the  begin- 
nings of  imitations  of  God's  inventions  ;  we  are  but  redis- 
covering new  continents  He  had  already  surveyed.  He 
found  Himself  unable  to  clear  and  till  the  soil  by  direc- 
tion, and  hence  He  is  indirectly  doing  it  by  our  hands. 
It  is  all  at  His  suggestion.  Science  is  His  work  of  colon- 
izing and  civilizing  His  own  country.  There  is  not  a 
single  mechanic  discovery  or  art  of  civilization  that  has 
not  been  used  by  Him  first.  Every  application  or  prin- 
ciple that  we  use  in  bridge-building,  architecture,  teleg- 
raphy, motility  in  air,  water,  or  on  earth  ;  every  use  of 
chemistry,  heat,  light,  electricity,  or  magnetism  ;  every  de- 
vice of  assault  or  protection;  every  tool  or  instrument 
whatsoever  that  we  have  made — all  have  their  analogues  in 
animal  or  vegetable  life  ;  all  were  His  before  they  became 
ours.  Our  works  indeed  are  not  seldom  mere  adaptations 
of  His  mechanisms,  and  the  fire  of  science  is  bright  be- 
cause we  are  only  commencing  to  learn.  If  we  only  had  the 
knowledge  and  power  over  atoms  and  molecules,  i.  e.,  if  we 
were  only  such  biochemists  as  He  !  Could  we  but  fly  as 
His  birds  !  We  have  not  yet  the  faintest  idea  of  the 
mechanism  of  muscle-contraction.  If  even  we  but  knew 
the  mechanisms  of  sensation  !  If  our  artists  could  but 
mould  and  color  as  He  can  !  What  musical  instrument 
can  compare  with  the  human  voice  !  Our  poetry  is  the 
attempt  to  re-sing  His  songs;  our  tragedies  are  the  poor 
echoes  of  His  griefs  ;  our  joys  the  reflection  of  light  from 
His  heaven ! 

We  can  do  nothing,  could   not   live  a  second  without 
levying  upon  and  often  most  ruthlessly  using  the  inven- 
tions of  His  hands.     Think  of  what  our  lives  would  be 
13 


IQ4     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

without  the  wood  of  His  trees,  used  in  every  thing  neces- 
sary to  our  comfort  and  to  our  very  existence.  Even 
the  minerals  v/ould  not  be  attainable  or  manufacturable 
without  His  help  in  wood,  fuel,  and  mechanisms.  There 
is  not  an  article  of  clothing  that  is  not  the  appropriation 
of  His  work,  the  most  useful  and  serviceable  being  those 
that  have  most  occupied  His  care,  and  that  have  previ- 
ously been  of  most  use  to  His  animals — wool,  hides,  and 
furs.  If  we  come  closer  to  our  life  and  think  of  our  food, 
we  are  quite  ashamed  because  the  brutal  selfishness  of  our 
greed  becomes  painful,  All  our  meats  are  the  muscles  of 
His  beloved  animals  that  we  have  killed  ;  all  our  fruits 
and  grains  and  vegetables  are  the  stored  supplies  of 
nourishment  for  His  seeds  ;  eggs  are  the  material  and  food 
provided  for  making  and  nourishing  the  feathered  young ; 
and  milk,  the  purest,  best,  and  loveliest  of  foods,  has  learned 
the  secret  and  beauty  of  life  in  the  beating  hearts  of  the 
purest,  best,  and  loveliest  of  His  children.  Surely  our  in- 
debtedness to  Him  not  only  for  our  original  being  and  the 
upholding  of  it  by  the  marvels  of  cell-life  and  nutrition, 
but  also  for  every  instant's  supply  of  tool  and  mechanism, 
clothing,  and  food, — truly  these  facts  leave  no  excuse  for 
the  doubting  of  our  primal  duty,  or  for  not  recognizing 
His  work  in  ours  and  ours  in  His. 

From  the  lowest  unicellular  organism  to  the  highest 
human  scientist  and  discoverer,  all  living  function  consists 
in  progressive  control  and  intellectual  use  of  physical 
forces,  and  this  is  the  characteristic  promise  of  the  future. 
Already  we  are  looking  out  into  space  to  extend  and  to 
see  evidences  of  the  extension  of  the  same  control  and  use. 
If  we  judge  correctly,  but  few  of  the  planetary  bodies  of 
our  system  permit  Biologos  to  carry  on  His  work  on  them. 
In  the  sidereal  heavens  there  are  probably  but  compara- 


JUSTIFICATION  OF   THE    INCARNATION  PROCESS.      195 

tively  few  worlds  whereon  He  has  been  able  to  gain  afoot- 
hold.  What  a  link  our  cosmic  life  may  be  in  the  whole 
plan  and  progress  of  the  universal  life-system  we  cannot 
guess.  We  may  be  the  outermost  colony  of  some  swirl 
and  cluster  of  sun-systems,  and  from  us  it  may  be  planned 
to  transplant  to  new  solar  systems  beyond  and  ever  be- 
yond, the  mechanisms  of  cellular  or  organic  life  without 
the  preliminary  stages  of  our  own  past  struggle  for  exist- 
ence. The  imagination  may  play  with  the  beautiful 
thoughts  aroused,  and  strain  eye  and  brain  to  catch 
glimpses  of  the  inter-related  harmonies  and  purposive 
adjustments  of  the  future  extension  and  progress  of  life, 
but  as  to-day's  realizations  in  civilization  are  infinitely 
richer  than  the  most  superb  forecastings  of  any  medieval 
fancy,  just  so,  we  are  convinced,  will  the  future  transcend 
the  most  dazzling  speculations  presumably  possible.  The 
essential  thing  is  hope  and  confidence  and  knowledge  that 
we  are  parts  of  a  great  system  of  purposive  progress  ;  that 
our  duty  is  loyalty  to  the  evident  design  and  Designer ; 
that  the  fundamental  mechanism  on  which  all  depends  is 
spirit-control  of  physical  forces  ;  that  the  condition  and 
motive  of  all  progress  is  extension  of  that  control ;  that 
the  essence  of  all  humanization  and  ethics  is  spiritual  use 
of  these  forces. 

There  is  the  plainest  evidence  of  a  progressive  conquer- 
ing of  the  nutritional  difficulty  in  the  future  biological 
process,  and  with  this  will  come  the  double  victory  of 
Biologos  over  the  dead  and  stubborn  world  of  crude  mat- 
ter, and  over  time  itself.  Only  an  infinitely  small  part  of  the 
universe  at  present  shows  spirit  in  control  of  matter,  but 
the  prospect  opening  to  our  view  is  that  of  a  progressive 
dominion  of  God  in  the  universe  until  the  loneliness  and 
death  and  uselessness  of  all  the  lifeless  worlds  of  space  shall 


196      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

be  flooded  and  filled  with  the  joy  of  intelligent  life,  and 
of  that  life  progressively  perfecting  and  extending  itself. 

Something  such,  it  appears  to  me,  at  least  temporarily 
and  tentatively,  is  a  sufficient  justification  of  the  incarna- 
tion-process, and  a  sufficient  atonement  for  the  labor  and 
evil  of  its  past  stages  as  read  by  science,  of  its  present 
stages  wherein  we  are  the  actors  and  observers,  and  of 
whatever  the  future  may  bring.  I  find  in  this  way  of 
thought  a  motive  for  all  energy,  an  explanation  of  the 
great  mysteries,  an  ideal  of  all  conduct  and  aspiration,  a 
principle  and  actualization  of  home-making  in  the  universe, 
that  brings  a  blessed  peace  to  my  mind  and  heart  that  is 
in  most  beautiful  contrast  to  the  tragic  failures  of  past 
philosophies  and  religions. 

Wherever  we  look  we  see  mentality  and  spirituality 
extending  their  control  over  matter  and  shining  through 
organization  with  eyes  ablaze  with  desire.  To  illustrate 
how  purely  psychical  or  metaphysical  qualities  dominate 
those  that  are  purely  physical,  and  thus  give  the  victory 
to  the  larger  and  better  type  of  character,  would  be  a 
a  work  of  supererogation.  In  every  day  of  our  life,  too, 
the  lesson  comes  home  to  us  that  in  the  long  run  the 
quality  and  motive  of  mind  outvalue  the  degree  and 
power  of  mind.  While  the  young  Napoleon's  mind  was 
plastic  and  patriotic,  nothing  could  conquer  him.  Later, 
although  with  more  infallible  judgment,  with  ripened 
experience,  with  systematized  powers  and  every  prop  of 
government  and  objective  force  to  aid  him,  he  failed.  He 
ran  headlong  upon  the  world's  moral  sentiment,  incarnate 
in  Wellington  and  his  English  boys.  Why?  Because 
honor  and  a  noble  ambition  had  given  way  to  selfishness 
and  ignoble  ambition.  The  lower  had  displaced  the  higher, 
and  the  physical  ruled  the  spiritual. 


JUSTIFICATION  OF   THE   INCARNATION  PROCESS.      197 

Examples  are  all  about  us :  Even  in  such  a  purely 
physical  encounter  as  that  of  the  prize-ring,  Corbett  whips 
Sullivan  ;  which  means  that  the  better  mind  and  heart 
(character)  more  than  make  up  for  lack  of  pure  muscle  and 
physical  powers.  Courage  is  etymologically  a  matter  of 
the  heart,  and  of  the  psychical  heart.  The  body  follows 
loyally  where  the  mind  commands  strongly. 

Paderewsky  has  inferior  physical,  even  inferior  (technical) 
musical  ability  to  other  players,  but  his  playing  is  soul 
made  into  sound,  and,  expression  being  all,  the  large  pure 
beautiful  character  of  the  man  inthrills  and  overfills  tone 
with  the  heaven  incarnate  of  divinely  psychic  revelations. 

Every  noble  physician  knows  that  it  is  not  absolutely 
the  most  scientific  man  that  succeeds  best  in  luring  the 
departing  soul  back  to  the  sick  body,  and  holding  it  to  the 
work  of  life.  Where  one  with  all  the  therapeutic  erudi- 
tion of  the  world  will  fail,  another,  a  simpler  but  holier 
physician,  will  enter  the  patient's  chamber,  and  lo  !  on 
the  walls  instead  of  the  sentence  of  death  there  gleams  the 
legend  of  convalescence.  The  heart  and  morality  often 
reach  intellectual  vision  that  is  denied  to  the  strongest 
intellect. 

In  politics,  even,  there  are  occasional  promises  and  ex- 
amples of  the  same  law,  the  most  striking  of  which  is  the 
late  peaceful  revolution  that  the  whole  American  people 
have  effected  and  seen.  "  Bossism  "  and  the  degradation 
of  principle  have  found  that  there  is  a  political  value  to 
probity  and  psychic  valor. 

It  is  only  into  the  vilest  walks  of  life,  in  the  realm  of 
ignoble  money-grabbing,  that  the  law  has  hardly  found  an 
entrance.  Here  one  cannot  say  much  more  than  the 
prayer,  How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long !  Wherever  else 
we  turn,  in  art,  science,  literature,  or  human  intercourse, 


198      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

it  is  the  quality  of  the  psychic  life  that  lends  biological 
things  their  value,  and  that  endows  them  with  charm  and 
durability. 

Let  us  also  not  lose  sight  of  the  everlasting  fact  that 
this  peculiarity  or  quality  of  psychic  life  is  moulded  or 
changed,  like  light  passing  through  the  sun's  photosphere, 
through  the  telluric  atmosphere,  or  through  a  colored  lens. 
The  pure  light  and  the  pure  divinity  are  by  the  traversed 
media  changed  only  by  subtraction  of  valuable  elements. 
Organization  (sarcogenesis)  is  the  lens  or  turbid  medium 
that  allows  the  divine  light  of  the  life  to  shine  through  it 
more  or  less  with  difficulty,  subtraction,  and  distortion. 
But  the  life  and  the  light  of  heaven  are  always  seeking  to 
reach  us  in  all  their  pristine  purity  and  strength.  The 
perfect  physiological  and  neurological  organization  is  that 
that  best  transmits  the  life  untouched  and  unclouded, 
even,  if  possible,  focusing  it  in  a  purer  and  warmer  beam. 
The  problem  of  morality,  of  art,  of  heroism,  and  of  saintli- 
ness  is  the  problem  of  achromatism.  Let  us  pass  God's 
life  through  the  atmosphere  of  our  earthly  life  and  the 
lens  of  incarnation  untouched  and  pure,  and  in  character 
let  it  be  focused  in  the  glory  of  the  mind  that  is  at  once 
both  divine  and  human. 


CHAPTER  X. 
FREEDOM. 

AFTER  the  problem  of  evil,  that  of  the  freedom  of  the 
will  has  been  the  next  most  puzzling  difficulty  of 
theology  and  philosophy.  It  is,  indeed,  only 
another  phase  of  the  first.  On  the  supposition  of  an  infi- 
nitely powerful  and  good  God  it  was  impossible  to  solve 
the  question  of  the  origin  of  evil :  either  evil  did  not 
exist,  or  else  language  and  thought  were  useless.  Just  so 
as  regards  freedom :  if  omnipotence  and  omniscience 
created  the  world,  it  is  of  course  impossible  for  human 
freedom  to  exist.  Dishonest  and  cowardly  intellects  may 
juggle  with  the  question,  and  the  record  of  past  jugglings 
is  either  pathetic,  or  ludicrous,  or  both,  as  one  may  look 
at  them.  The  splendid  acrobatic  performance  of  Calvin 
and  his  followers  is  the  crowning  act  of  the  tragical  farce 
or  farcical  tragedy.  By  dint  of  a  frightful  solemnity  of 
manner  and  countenance,  and  with  a  hypnotic  fixation  of 
the  attention  upon  a  lot  of  words  majestically  intoned, — 
foreordination,  predestination,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
pompous  Latin  polysyllables — one  comes  near  forgetting 
logical  facts  for  illogical  fancies. 

Hypertrophic  or  parasitic  intellects,  that  is,  those  de- 
veloped at  the  expense  of  hypotrophic  or  atrophic  emo- 
tion and  perception,  have  always  been  deterministic  in 
belief.  Such  minds  have  no  difficulty  in  disregarding  the 
ineradicable  human  consciousness  of  freedom,  and  the 

199 


200      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

plain  objective  facts  of  life.  They  always  prefer  a  sub- 
jective process  of  thought  to  a  recognition  of  objective 
facts.  Whether  the  logic-chopping  machine  be  worked  in 
the  supposed  interests  of  religion,  or  of  philosophy,  or  of 
science,  matters  not.  Calvin  and  Schopenhauer  and 
Spencer  strike  hands  on  this  point.  And  when  the  logic- 
machine  butts  against  the  immovable  wall  of  fact,  it  turns 
tail,  and  points  the  other  way — i.  e.,  facts  are  ignored, 
the  belief  continued,  but  much  weakened  and  made  foolish 
by  a  useless  persistence  of  wheel-turning  without  percep- 
tible movement  forward.  Now  according  to  my  way  of 
thinking,  God,  evil,  freedom,  etc.,  are  not  alone  or  chiefly 
matters  of  subjective  thought  processess,  but  if  they  exist 
at  all  are  genuine  facts,  to  be  perceived,  studied,  and 
tested,  exactly  as  one  studies  a  chemical  reaction  or  a 
physiological  process.  They  are  true  objects  of  scientific 
investigation,  and  are  to  be  submitted  to  the  discriminat- 
ing reason  and  perception  with  questions  of  how  much, 
how  far,  what  qualities,  and  what  degrees,  precisely  as  we 
approach  any  biological  investigation.  If  trinitarianism 
be  a  fact,  it  is  a  matter  of  scientific  investigation,  as  are 
all  facts,  and  the  articles  of  the  Apostles'  creed,  or  of  the 
Nicene  creed,  are  to  be  considered  as  subject  to  the  prov- 
ings  of  historical  and  biological  investigation,  and  in  ex- 
actly the  same  way,  as  Weissmann's  theory  of  heredity, 
or  the  influence  of  Occidental  civilization  on  Japanese 
development.  And  the  onus probandi\\es,  of  course,  with 
the  assertor.  If  one  assertthat  Japan  developed  its  present 
.governmental  and  social  changes  because  of  the  influence 
-of  Aztec  immigration  and  discoveries,  it  behooves  him  to 
prove  it  by  historical  facts ;  if  the  theory  is  an  illogical 
dream  of  the  fancy  or  of  superstition,  let  it  so  appear. 
Just  so  with  any  one  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 


FREEDOM.  201 

It  appears  to  me  plain  that  every  step,  nay,  every 
creature,  of  the  biological  process  shows  adaptation  to  and 
utilization  of  "  the  environment."  Circumstances  by  no 
means  dictate  the  "  reaction,"  but  the  organism,  whether 
plant,  ameba,  horse,  or  man,  "reacts"  to  "external 
stimulus  or  environment  "  in  just  that  way  that  subserves 
the  object  it  has  in  view.  The  reaction  is  never  purely  - 
mechanical,  but  is  always  hypermechanical,  always  one 
of  utilization,  of  selection,  and  of  purpose.  Now, 
the  entire  being  that  uses,  selects,  and  designs,  is 
something  that  comes  into  matter  with  the  evident 
attribute  of  spontaneity,  choice,  or  freedom.  Precisely 
as  an  architect  choses  this  or  that  plan,  this  or  that 
material,  just  as  he  changes,  shapes,  supports,  ornaments, 
or  colors  —  so  does  Biologos,  in  coming  into  His  circum- 
stance, and  in  using  His  material.  And  precisely  as  the 
architect  makes  his  building  conform  to  the  purpose  and 
needs  of  the  occupant,  so  does  He  ;  and  precisely  as  the 
architect  is  forced  to  conform  plan,  extent,  character,  etc., 
to  the  materials  procurable,  and  to  the  means  at  hand,  so 
does  He;  and  precisely  as  the  architect  whenever  he  is 
able,  makes  the  appearance  of  the  dwelling  to  others  and 
to  the  owner,  beautiful  and  delight-giving,  so  does  God 
in  all  the  works  of  His  building.  But  the  architect  has 
freedom,  as  houses  good,  bad,  beautiful,  and  hideous 
convincingly  demonstrate.  That  God's  creations  are 
always  most  perfect  and  beautiful,  always  so  much  so  as 
the  poverty  and  obstinacy  of  his  materials  will  permit, 
and  the  winds,  storms,  and  vicissitudes  of  circumstances 
allow  —  this  is  certainly  no  argument  against  His  freedom, 
but  is  evidence  of  that  to  which  perfect  freedom  leads  : 
right  use  of  freedom.  The  infinite  multiplicity  of  device 

to  effect  ends  in  view,  e.g.,  the  inexhaustible^ertfTTty  an 

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, 

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202      THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ingenuity  of  millionfold  methods  of  defence  in  plant  or 
animal,  shows  the  resourceful  spontaneity,  the  glorious 
extent  or  range  of  freedom.  Every  cell  in  its  com- 
position, function,  and  location  is  indeed  an  act  of  free 
choosing  on  His  part,  to  correspond  with  the  ever  vary- 
ing object  in  view  and  the  modifying  circumstance.  Con- 
cerning God's  freedom,  therefore,  its  limitlessness  is  simply 
astounding. 

Organofaction,  as  we  have  seen,  is  simply  the  automa- 
tonization  and  extension  of  function.  Individualization, 
or  individuation,  is  simply  the  unitization  of  organs.  Many 
organs  make  an  organism,  or  an  individual.  Function,  we 
must  never  forget,  always  precedes  structure  ;  it  is  the 
repetition  of  function  that  begets  that  cell-habit  and  dif- 
ferentiation that  form  the  basis  of  organogenesis  and 
organofaction.  Freedom  is  seen  in  the  structureless 
pseudopod  and  in  the  developing  ovum,  and  its  character- 
istic is  that  of  a  seeking  and  making  means  and  tools 
wherewith  to  realize  its  purposes.  No  living  being  can 
ever  escape  the  service  of  the  necessity  of  nutrition  ;  it  is 
always  the  controlling  and  chief  element  of  all  biologic 
process.  In  the  lowest  types,  together  with  the  regener- 
ative necessity,  it  is  the  all-absorbing  concern.  So  difficult 
has  been  the  task  of  incarnation  that,  up  to  the  bringing 
out  of  the  human,  scarcely  any  conscious  function  of  the 
individual  is  operative  except  these  two.  And  as  the  re- 
productive function  in  all  below  the  human  has  been  kept 
below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  i.  e.,  has  been  solely 
controlled  by  Him  without  delegation  to  the  creature,  it 
follows  that  all,  or  almost  all,  function  below  the  human, 
whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  has  been  nutritional. 
Now  all  consciousness  or  individual  choosing  on  the  part 
of  the  creature  is  merely  the  delegation  of  freedom  by  the 


FREEDOM.  203 

Creator.  With  individuation  came  the  individual's  control 
of  molar  motion,  the  first  control  of  masses  or  of  gravity, 
thus  indirectly  gained  by  Biologos.  But  the  organismal 
origin  and  independent  use  of  molar  motion,  as  it  were, 
per  se,  created  the  responsibility  and  limited  freedom  of 
the  individual.  The  molecular  function  of  nutrition  has 
never  been  given  over  to  the  creature ;  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  consciousness  or  of  delegated  control ;  with  the  food 
past  the  mouth  his  function  ceases,  and  His  begins.  But 
within  the  necessary  limits,  the  procuring  of  the  crude 
materials  of  nutrition  (in  which  of  course  are  included 
those  of  protection,  warmth,  and  struggle)  is  the  product 
of  the  free  use  of  muscles  or  the  control  of  molar  motion. 
Within  the  limits  dictated  by  the  nutritional  difficulty 
and  necessity,  therefore,  have  been  confined  the  range  and 
power  of  freedom,  or  the  consciousness  of  the  vegetable 
and  animal.  Even  in  these  kingdoms  there  are  millions 
of  degrees  of  freedom,  according  to  the  infinite  diversities 
and  difficulties  of  the  nutritional  problem.  The  freedom 
of  the  barnacle  and  that  of  the  fox  are  vastly  different  in 
degree,  but  that  of  the  barnacle  however  restricted  is  never 
absent.  In  the  higher  animals  it  is  very  extended  and 
rich,  and  in  their  play,  humor,  ornamentation,  bird-song, 
and  the  like  we  see  ever-increasing  freedom,  and  reachings- 
out  after  freedom  beyond  the  hard  confines  of  nutritional 
necessities.  In  dogs  and  domesticated  animals,  the  will- 
ingness of  Biologos  to  emancipate,  and  the  capacity  to  be 
emancipated,  is  abundantly  evident  in  the  beautiful  eager- 
ness and  expertness  with  which  they  respond  to  the  kindly 
teachings  of  spirit,  imbibing  freedom  with  hearty  relish 
and  thankfulness,  and  using  it  with  a  loyalty  that  often 
puts  us  to  shame. 

In  the  vegetable  world  to  the  careful  and  sympathetic 


204     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

observer  two  exquisite  facts  are  clear:  the  dumb  hunger 
for  freedom,  and  the  patient  self-sacrificing  resignation  and 
fulfilling  of  the  allotted  task.  Every  plant  in  its  lowly 
beauty  or  conquered  difficulty  ;  every  tree  in  its  firm- 
rooted  stability,  or  columnar  dignity,  and  light-loving 
aspiration  ; — all  are  humbly  patient  and  silently  successful, 
all  infinitely  ingenious  in  seeking  help  of  wind  and  bee,  or 
in  guarding  against  inimical  self-seekers,  all  silently  and 
incessantly  asking  of  man  a  helpful  bit  of  sympathy,  pro- 
tection, nourishment,  and  always  quickly  responsive  with 
instant  gratitude  and  service  to  him  when  he  answers 
their  call.  Do  not  each  and  all  ever  speak  to  the  kind 
human  heart  a  pathetic  lesson  and  a  sweet  reminder  of 
our  common  essential  brotherhood  ?  For  our  brothers 
they  are;  God's  own  life  is  in  them,  and  the  beauty  of 
love  is  that  it  does  not  even  stoop  to  the  humblest,  but  in 
its  own  humility  walks  and  works  among  the  humble,  one 
of  them,  grieving  in  their  grief,  glad  in  their  gladness,  help- 
ful when  they  call,  and  grateful  when  they  give.  These 
are  the  least  of  the  children  of  the  great  Father,  and, 
like  all  children,  they  seek  and  repay  all  the  interest  that 
we,  their  larger  brothers  and  sisters,  can  give.  In  their 
humble  devotion  to  the  duty  of  their  dual  task,  the  per- 
fection with  which  it  is  done  commands  our  admiration  ; 
but,  as  always  and  everywhere,  how  wonderfully  God 
rewards  them  for  their  exquisite  obedience,  by  beauty  and 
satisfaction.  If  the  flower  were  only  to  catch  the  bee's  eye  ; 
if  the  fruit  were  only  to  catch  the  bird's  eye  ;  if  the  chlo- 
rophyll were  alone  for  utility,  dabs  and  blotches  of  unsym- 
metrical  and  coarse  colors  would  do  quite  as  well  as  the 
heavenly  tints  and  groupings.  But  the  dear,  bountiful, 
laughing,  beautiful  God  is  ever  watching  for  opportunity 
to  reward,  ever  trying  to  burst  through  the  necessary  and 


FREEDOM.  205 

the  useful  with  His  rich  self-revelation  of  the  Spontaneous 
and  the  Beautiful. 

The  progressive  delegation  of  freedom  to  the  animal,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  limited  almost  entirely  to  that  degree  of 
freedom  that  is  conterminous  with  the  nutritional  problem. 
With  the  breaking  of  the  animal  into  the  human  the  old 
necessity  persists  but  the  limits  are  widened.  Civilization 
is  the  'settlement  of  the  nutritional  problem,  and  the  per- 
mission of  the  application  of  consciousness  to  other  than 
purely  nutritional  questions.  Control  of  power  has  ad- 
vanced and  its  other  aspect,  freedom,  has  synchronously 
widened.  The  human  being  of  to-day,  who  by  choice  or 
necessity  is  occupied  solely  with  questions  of  nutrition, 
with  money,  or  the  lack  of  it,  with  material  luxuries  or 
necessities,  with  "  society  "  ideals  and  pleasures,  is  simply 
in  the  animal  stage  of  existence,  his  freedom  is  that  of  the 
powerful  animal  limited  in  its  range  to  one  problem. 

He  has  not  comprehended  the  object  of  civilization,  he 
ignores  the  greatest  blessing  ever  offered  man,  the  gift  of 
a  new  freedom,  of  an  enlarged  consciousness,  and  of  a 
mightier  power  than  his  worthless  wealth  has  dreamed  of. 
For  God  has  ever  waited  to  give  until  the  responsibility 
could  be  used  without  too  great  danger  to  the  general 
process.  Nothing  seemingly  pleases  Him  better  than  to 
endow  with  freedom  so  soon  as  it  may  be  safely  given. 
It  is  no  pleasure  to  a  rider  to  tame  a  stupid,  headstrong 
horse  by  the  brute  force  of  constantly-used  bit  and  whip. 
The  pleasure  is  in  the  bright,  responsive  intelligence, 
quick  to  see  and  loyal  to  act.  To  the  loyal  intelligent 
human  heart  who  never  abuses  freedom,  there  comes  a 
wealth  of  freedom  and  of  power  that  makes  the  heart 
swell  with  gratitude.  Whereas  the  selfish,  the  cunning, 
the  unscrupulous,  and  the  pig-headed  find  a  thousand  ob- 


206      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

stacles  in  their  path,  whilst  enslaving  and  opposing  enemies 
rise  up  to  obstruct  and  to  dispute  advance.  "  Ask  and 
ye  shall  receive,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you," 
is  a  beautiful  fact  of  freedom  and  responsibility. 

There  is  no  such  enemy  of  freedom,  nothing  so  narrows 
and  enslaves,  as  that  outrageous  form  of  selfishness,  the 
love  of  luxury.  Those  who  misuse  wealth,  those  who 
ravenously  seek  it,  and  those  who  hate  their  poverty,  are 
alike  lovers  of  their  slavery,  ignorers  of  the  freedom  that 
would  come  to  them  if  they  would  fill  their  hearts  with 
the  old  simple  virtues  of  cheerfulness,  kindness,  and  grati- 
tude, and  look  out  to  understand  and  to  love  instead  of 
nursing  their  own  deserved  misery  in  ignorance  and  hate. 
"  Magnus  inter  opes  inops."  It  is  the  fatuity  of  low  char- 
acters to  enormously  over-value  what  the  world  calls 
success,  and  a  further  evidence  of  their  wretched  folly 
consists  in  seeking  it  by  chicane  and  fraud.  For  a  while 
they  rise  quickly,  and  in  the  dazzle  of  their  progress  the 
knowing  ask  themselves,  Is  this  really  that  sort  of  a  world  ? 
Three  mistakes  are  made  :  i.  Dependence  upon  "  sharp  " 
ways  and  means  lessens  one's  knowledge  and  recognition 
of  honorable  means;  the  real  sources  of  power,  intellectual 
clearness  and  honor,  are  ignored,  whilst  the  love  and  re- 
spect of  high-minded  men  slips  away  into  silent,  subtle 
distrust.  2.  With  temporary  success,  one  grows  more 
brazen  and  the  natural  limits  of  trickery  are  not  seen.  Soon 
there  is  collision  with  an  immovable  obstacle  in  the  shape 
of  honor  and  morality  incarnate  in  some  man  or  institution. 
3.  If  united  to  a  sufficiently  strong  intellect  "  shrewd- 
ness "  and  selfish  cunning  may  be  quite  early  successful, 
but  whether  so  or  not,  the  attainment  of  the  long-sought 
prize  turns  out  to  be  a  sad  deception,  the  ashes  of  death. 
Many  a  successful  man  or  woman  would  give  all  their 


FREEDOM.  2O7 

riches  and  luxuries  and  power  for  one  fresh  heart-thrill  of 
large  joy,  for  \.\\e  possibility  of  being  kind,  or  good,  or  in- 
telligent. But  dead  forever  is  the  murdered  heart,  the 
stifled  honor,  and  the  starved  intellect. 

The  degree  of  freedom  is  therefore  according  to  the  de- 
sire and  ability  to  make  right  use  of  it.  Every  mechanism 
and  creature  of  the  living  world, — that  world-process  itself 
from  beginning  to  now,  is  evidence  and  fact  of  deputed 
power.  Nothing  is  plainer  than  the  present  desire  to  still 
further  delegate  responsibility  so  fast  as  trustworthy  dele- 
gates may  be  found.  Here  stands  the  splendid  completed 
engine  of  the  entire  biological  world,  together  with  com- 
mand already  gained  of  large  mechanical  powers  of  the 
inorganic  world,  a  gift  to  man  by  its  Creator.  That  huge 
fortunes  are  being  made  by  individuals  with  its  use  and 
abuse  ;  that  city  luxury  and  vice  are  expensive  parasites 
upon  country  hardship  and  virtue  ;  that  governmental  rule 
and  legislation  are  used  as  the  tools  for  the  greed  of 
classes  and  even  of  individuals ;  that  forests  are  being  de- 
stroyed, the  balances  of  different  orders  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  thereby  upset,  and  injurious  climatic  and 
agricultural  changes  thereby  caused  ;  that  some  of  the 
fairest  of  God's  creatures  are  being  barbarously  and  ruth- 
lessly exterminated — all  these  things  and  many  more  show 
that  responsibility  and  freedom  have  been  delegated  to 
man  too  bounteously  and  too  soon,  rather  than  too  nig- 
gardly and  too  late. 

I  said  delegated,  but  here  arises  the  thought  that  it  has 
been  a  ruthless  seizing  rather  than  a  receiving  of  gift. 
Freedom  is  doubtless  an  acquirement,  a  method  as  well 
as  a  reward  of  education.  By  the  wrong  use  of  it  one 
lessens  the  right  use,  and  already  we  see  the  subtle  mech- 
anisms of  forefending,  compensation,  education,  and 


208      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

equilibrium  being  instituted  and  set  to  work.  These 
mechanisms  are  everywhere  coming  into  play,  and  are  of 
most  various  and  multiform  nature.  Preventive  medi- 
cine ;  societies  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals 
and  children  ;  the  science  and  art  of  forestry  ;  the  sym- 
pathetic study  of  the  living  world,  great  Science  herself ; 
astronomy  ;  democracy ;  the  growing  detestation  of  sel- 
fishly-used wealth ;  and  socialism, — such  are  a  few  of  the 
agencies  at  work.  Few  know  whither  they  are  looking  or 
for  what  they  are  working.  God  makes  agents  and  in- 
struments even  of  His  enemies,  and,  our  compasses  having 
been  lost,  with  His  own  winds  he  steers  our  vessels  into 
harbors  unexpected  and  better  than  those  we  have  sought. 
But  by  the  voyaging  we  have  learned  the  sea,  and  a  new 
life,  and  we  are  henceforth  better  mariners  than  we  were 
before. 

Finally,  there  arises  the  question  as  to  possibility  of 
any  thing  that  may  legitimately  be  called  freedom,  con- 
sistent with  the  biologic  process  of  "  incarnation."  Every 
cell  of  every  organism  being  made  and  fed  by  His  life, 
how  is  it  possible  to  find  in  the  very  work  of  His  hand 
anything  but  a  mechanically  obedient  mechanism,  and 
where  is  there  chance  for  freedom  or  responsibility  ?  The 
answer  to  this  very  pertinent  question  is  clear  to  my  mind, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  put  it  in  words,  and  almost  impossi- 
ble to  do  so  for  those  who  by  mental  habit  have  anthropo- 
morphized their  conception  of  God  in  such  a  way  that 
the  truth  becomes  impossible  for  them  to  see  or  vividly  to 
realize.  The  question  is*  bound  up  with  that  of  the  na- 
ture of  spirit  and  personality.  There  is  also  a  certain 
intellectual  expertness  and  power  requisite  to  catch  even 
the  faintest  perception  of  the  real  nature  of  spiritual  ex- 
istence and  life  whether  of  the  divine  or  of  the  human 


FREEDOM.  209 

type.  Occidental  thought  has  had  no  gymnastic  exercise 
in  comprehending  metaphysical  realities,  and  it  is  either 
awed  and  bowed  into  the  dust  before  God,  or  stupidly 
denies  His  very  existence.  But  whether  adoring  or  de- 
nying, it  is  non-understanding.  Then,  too,  a  very  general 
idea  and  ideal  of  freedom  is  that  of  freedom  from  respon- 
sibility, instead  of  which,  freedom  in  responsibility  is  a 
much  truer  conception.  The  only  true  freedom  consists 
in  obedience,  not  in  disobedience,  to  use  power  rightly 
instead  of  wrongly.  The  analogy  of  the  horse  may  serve 
us  again  ;  an  unruly,  balky,  stubborn  animal  will  secure 
from  his  owner  less  freedom  than  a  bridlewise  and  gladly 
willing  one.  One  that  would  never  be  caught  or  be 
broken  would  finally  be  killed.  The  more  "  vicious  "  the 
more  certain  to  get  suffering,  and  to  drift  to  the  worst 
and  severest  labor.  The  more  humanized,  the  more  free- 
dom and  love ;  and,  if  intelligence  and  loyalty  were: 
sufficient,  restraint,  bridle,  whip,  and  all  bars  to  freedom 
would  be  done  away  with.  I  find  it  exactly  so  between 
God  and  His  creatures.  Joyful  and  intelligent  accept- 
ance of  the  role  and  duty  assigned,  courage  to  be  and  to 
do,  lead  to  a  freedom  no  money-king  or  man-king  can 
ever  have  or  can  even  understand.  Loyalty  and  knowl- 
edge combined  are  the  only  means  of  acquiring  spiritual 
freedom,  and  these  things  are  impossible  while  money  or 
power  is  selfishly  used.  The  very  acquiring  and  holding 
of  wealth  is  itself  unforgivable  sin  and  wrong, — is  evidence 
per  se  that  self  has  been  valued  above  all  others  and  above 
the  purposes  of  God.  The  words  and  the  truth  of  the 
words  of  Jesus  are  perfectly  plain  as  to  the  love  and  use 
of  money,  but  no  modern  Christian  (unless  perhaps  it  be 
the  "heretic,"  John  Ruskin,  one  of  the  greatest  charac-- 
ters  of  these  centuries)  is  at  all  likely  to  heed  or  to  follow 


210     THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

the  command  of  his  God,  the  "  Second  person  of  the 
Trinity."  A  worshipper  who  in  the  week  spends  six  days 
in  the  porcine  scramble  for  stolen  money,  and  seven  even- 
ings in  wasting  it  in  self-gratification,  who  lives  or  bends 
all  energies  in  trying  to  live  in  affluence,  and  who  gives 
one  hour  out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  to  the  wor- 
ship of  a  deity  whose  thundering  repetitive  denuncia- 
tions of  money  and  the  love  of  money  are  the  plainest 
of  His  teachings, — this  is  a  spectacle  reserved  for  the 
blasphemous  degradation  of  the  nineteenth  of  Christian 
centuries  I 


CHAPTER  XL 
PERSONALITY. 

THE  telephone,  the  telegraph,  travel,  and  increased 
ease  of  travel,  knowledge  of  geography,  astronomy, 
spectrum  analysis,  the  study  of  gravitation,  radiant 
heat,  light,  electric  and  magnetic  ether-motions, — these,  in 
one  sense,  are  athletic  mental  exercises  in  space-comprehen- 
sion and  in  space-subjection.  We  are  no  longer  appalled 
and  terrified ;  instead,  we  understand  and  use.  Mere 
distance,  however  interesting,  no  longer  inspires  us  with 
cosmic  horror.  There  is  no  comprehension  of  the  world  of 
lifeless  matter  or  of  the  work  God  is  doing  in  and  with  it, 
except  through  a  diligent  and  an  accurate  study  of  phys- 
ics, molecular  and  molar.  These  are  the  lowest  stairs 
that  lead  up  to  the  temple  of  the  knowledge  of  God.  As 
commonly  understood  worship  is  proof  in  itself  that  the 
Being  worshipped  is  not  known  ;  it  is  often  a  lazy  excuse 
for  not  trying  to  know  Him ;  and  even  in  its  highest 
aspects,  it  is  only  a  combined  admonition  and  humble 
non-actualized  desire  to  know.  Mere  blank  wonder,  mere 
rapt  adoration,  mere  dazzled  awe,  mere  non-comprehend- 
ing averment  of  God's  existence  and  greatness,  mere 
emphasis  of  the  creature's  littleness,  mere  flattery  and 
praise  of  Him,  however  solemn  and  sincere,  is,  to  be  sure, 
infinitely  preferable  and  more  gloriously  true  than  the 
prize  stupidity  and  despicable  nil  admirari  of  fashion- 
able agnosticism  and  atheism.  But,  frankly,  it  also  is  at 

211 


212      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

last  a  little  b£te.  Certainly  there  are  degrees  of  knowl- 
edge. Even  the  priests  of  the  God  Unknowable  would 
hardly  deny  that  they  themselves  know  a  wee  bit  more 
about  Him  than  an  African  pigmy  knows  about  Him. 
Every  church  and  sect  is  quite  certain  that  its  peculiar 
worship  is  more  right  and  is  based  on  a  better  conception 
of  God  than  that  of  the  other  churches  and  sects.  All  do 
tacitly  admit  degrees  of  knowledge.  If  God  exists,  what 
thing  could  He  more  desire  than  to  be  understood  and 
known  by  His  children.  Instead  of  impiety,  the  attempt 
to  comprehend  Him  is  true  piety,  and  to  increase  and 
praise  the  open-mouthed  bewilderment  of  stupid  contem- 
plation is  genuine  impiety.  Even  a  good  man  dislikes  the 
over-enthusiastic  praise  of  his  admirers,  however  sincere 
it  is.  Certainly  a  good  God  must  smile  pathetically 
and  tiredly  upon  the  "  hocus-pocus,"  and  He  must  long 
for  the  coming  of  virile  human  minds  that,  without 
losing  love  and  respect,  will  still  try  to  comprehend  and 
to  know. 

The  knowledge  of  chemistry,  of  molecular  and  atomic 
physics,  and  especially  of  microscopy,  also  complements 
and  completes  the  knowledge  of  the  infinitely  great  and 
far,  and  habituates  the  mind  to  a  just  comprehension  of 
the  idea  of  extension.  Knowledge  of  the  ether  and  of 
its  properties  has  annihilated  nihilism,  the  old  bugaboo 
of  emptiness  or  vacuity,  so  that  now  we  know  that 
wherever  space  extends  it  is  filled  with  a  medium  that 
binds  the  physical  universe  into  a  unity  and  comprehen- 
sibility  greatly  aiding  our  sense  of  home-being  and  home- 
making  in  the  world.  Waves  of  water  that  we  can  see  and 
hear,  help  us  to  understand  waves  of  air  that  we  can  hear 
but  cannot  see,  and  waves  of  air  help  us  to  comprehend 
the  attributes  and  waves  of  ether  that  we  can  neither  see 


PERSONA  LITY.  213 

nor  hear,  and  that  are  studied  only  by  the  scientific  imagi- 
nation. Rising  from  that  completed  study  the  mind  is 
trained  to  grasp  the  idea  of  an  unlocalized  intelligent 
force,  still  less  subject  to  the  rule  of  space  or  of  extension, 
and  operative  throughout  the  universe.  The  uneducated 
mind  demands  localization  of  spirit,  and  feels  it  is  deprived 
of  its  divinity  if  it  is  forced  to  think  of  Him  as  unlocal- 
ized, or  as  at  all  points  of  space  at  all  times.  When  that 
intelligent  force  enters  matter  it  becomes  subject  to  its 
laws,  and  as  regards  both  action  and  thought  there  is  im- 
posed upon  that  specific  organism  the  primal  condition  of 
the  law  that  no  body  can  occupy  two  positions  at  the 
same  instant.  Hence  the  necessity  of  our  thought  (at 
least  temporarily)  is  to  make  us  localize  personality ;  and 
if  it  be  not  so  localized  it  becomes  almost  or  quite  non- 
existent. Just  here  the  simple  perception  of  a  fact  corrects 
our  loss  of  comprehension,  and  gives  us  back  the  reality 
of  God  by  the  reality  of  apprehension.  At  any  one  in- 
stant and  at  all  instants  we  perceive  and  know  He  is 
actually  forming  and  upholding  every  cell  of  every  living 
organism  in  ocean,  in  air,  and  on  earth,  all  over  and  all 
through  the  world.  Our  own  attention  must  be  upon  a 
single  object  at  any  instant ;  His  is  equally  strong  and 
accurate  upon  billions  of  millions  at  the  same  instant ; 
and  not  only  in  this  little  world,  but  in  others  throughout 
the  depths  of  the  universe.  The  fact  we  can  perceive ;  it 
is  beyond  question  ;  and  there  is  also  an  ability  on  our 
part  to  grow  into  a  progressive  comprehension  of  the  fact, 
as  we  habitualize  and  progressively  strengthen  the  mind 
to  such  perceptional  function. 

In  the  same  way  we  can  accustom  and  exercise  the  mind 
into  a  conception  more  or  less  true  of  the  nature  of  time. 
A  knowledge  of  history,  human  and  biological ;  the  con- 


214      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

ception  of  gravity,  and  of  swift-flitting  light  ;  the  vivid 
memory  of  our  dreams  ;  the  realization  of  the  unity  of 
end,  middle,  and  beginning,  of  our  life-time ;  the  com- 
parison of  sluggish  with  brilliant  minds ;  the  evident 
compression  of  time  by  the  life  of  a  modern  educated 
mind, — such  things  habituate  us  to  the  thought  that  time 
is  an  attribute  or  condition  of  matter  put  upon  the  incar- 
nating spirit.  It  is  in  the  last  analysis  a  sort  of  measuring- 
stick  of  the  nutritional  difficulty.  The  biological  process 
is  so  slow  because  of  its  difficulty ;  if  nutrition  were  a 
hundred  times  easier,  our  thought  and  our  life  would  be 
infinitely  more  rapid,  and  the  present  stage  of  progress 
would  have  been  reached  long  ago.  Education  and 
scientific  thinking  in  a  measure  annihilate  time,  and  the 
timelessness  of  God  becomes  to  the  expert  intellect  not 
a  frightful  but  a  comforting  conception.  Fact,  the  simple 
perception  of  an  evident  fact,  again  aids  us:  One  purpose 
and  manner  of  work  unites  the  earliest  efforts  of  the  in- 
carnation-process with  the  middle  that  we  are,  and  with 
the  coming  perfection  of  that  that  is  to  be.  There  is  here 
a  unity  that  could  only  flow  from  a  cause  lying  outside  of 
time.  The  length  of  the  unrolling  is  the  condition  of 
difficulty  of  the  process,  and  the  length  hides  from  the 
undiscerning  eye  the  design,  patent  to  him  who  can  over- 
look and  extinguish  time  in  the  perception  of  cause  and 
effect.  Trained  thought  enables  us  to  squeeze  time  out 
of  fact,  to  compress  centuries  and  eras  into  minutes,  and 
to  see  that  to  God  the  process  is  instantaneous.  To  the 
slow-travelling  mind  the  outlines  of  the  design  of  the  bio- 
logical process  are  blurred  by  the  dreary  journey,  but  he 
whose  spirit  can  travel  by  the  wings  of  the  educated  im- 
agination, crushes  cycles  of  time-changes  into  seconds  of 
thought,  and  walks  boldly  out  of  the  opened  prison-win- 


PERSONA  LI  TV.  215 

dows  of  time  into  the  freedom  of  an  eternity  wherein  past 
and  future  are  unified  into  the  ever-present. 

The  limitation  of  God's  omnipotence  comes  chiefly  to 
light  in  the  nutritional  difficulty  of  the  cell  and  organism, 
shown  in  death  and  in  the  impossibility  of  reaching  ends 
(the  human  co-worker,  for  example),  except  through  the 
millions  of  precedent  and  preparative  stages  that  we  see 
in  the  earth's  biological  history.  The  human  aspect  or 
generalization  of  that  difficulty  is  our  mental  habit  of 
seeing  things  only  in  time-relations.  And  as  that  diffi- 
culty of  God  was  tremendous  and  incessant,  the  record  of 
it  engraved  in  our  minds  is  powerful  and  indelible.  God's 
space-difficulty  has  been  slight  or  non-existent,  and  there 
is  a  similar  freedom  of  our  thought  from  this  slavery. 
Light  takes  hundreds  or  thousands  of  years  to  travel  to 
us  from  some  visible  stars,  even  though  it  travel  at  the 
rate  of  189,213  miles  a  second.  But  our  thought  can 
travel  from  here  to  there  instantaneously.  In  the  same 
way  our  practical  reduction  of  space  by  quick  travel,  by 
telegraph  and  telephone,  has  been  tremendously  success- 
ful, whilst  life  is  not  lengthened,  and  our  control  of  time 
is  but  little  if  any  increased.  In  many  such  ways  we  see 
that  God's  great  difficulties  are  also  ours,  and  that  His 
nature  and  capacities  are  also  our  own,  with  the  obvious 
difference  of  degree  and  perfection. 

God's  power  to  direct  attention  to  all  parts  or  points 
at  once  is  a  natural  consequence  of  his  practical  omni- 
presence. Our  development  and  history  have  been  such 
that  it  is  quite  impossible  for  the  inexpert  mind  to  fix  clear 
attention  upon  more  than  one  object  at  a  time.  The 
organist  or  locomotive-engineer  has  quite  a  high  power 
of  divided  attention.  The  ability  to  hold  the  attention 
so  aloof  from  any  one  point,  and  yet  so  alert  and  easily 


2l6     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

influenced  that  disorder  in  any  one  part  will  quickly 
direct  the  attention  thither,  is  observable  in  many,  and 
this  power  is  doubtless  the  beginning  of  the  process  of 
our  infinitization,  if  one  may  so  speak.  Immense  progress 
in  carrying  many  subjects  "in  hand/'  is  by  slow  degrees 
leading  the  complex  modern  mind -into  the  capacity  of 
multiform  synchronous  attention.  It  is  a  distinctly  im- 
provable power,  a  matter  of  mental  gymnastics  and  exer- 
cise. If  the  Brahminic  and  Buddhistic  mind,  with  its 
splendid  metaphysical  suppleness  and  power,  had  but  had 
the  actual  world  of  matter  and  life,  the  scientific  data  of 
the  modern,  to  work  upon  and  to  balance  it,  its  moon- 
iness  and  pessimism  would  have  been  obviated.  There 
might  also  have  been  evasion  of  the  distressing  narrow- 
ness and  banality  of  the  modern  type  of  pseudo-science, 
which,  as  it  were,  is  forever  content  to  study  mysteries 
profusely  and  strangely  flung  at  us  from  over  a  wall,  but 
that  never  dreams  of  asking  about  the  other  side  of  the 
wall. 

The  next  most  striking  quality  of  the  divine  mind,  one 
that  is  perhaps  more  noteworthy  and  characteristic  than 
any  of  the  preceding,  is  that  of  His  ability  to  deal  with 
atoms,  molecules,  short  ether-waves,  and  the  infinitesi- 
mally  small.  This  is  conjoined  with  that  striking  limita- 
tion of  his  omnipotence  that  I  have  so  often  emphasized, 
His  inability  to  directly  influence  molar  motion.  The 
entire  fact  constitutes  the  most  astonishing  and  marked 
difference  between  the  divine  and  the  human  personality, 
and,  if  we  would  understand  the  living  world,  needs  to  be 
kept  constantly  in  the  attention.  If  one  wishes  to  think 
of  God  as  "  substance  "  or  "  matter^"  it  may  be  done,  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  ether  greatly  aids  us  in  the  attempt. 
According  to  this  suggestion  we  are  helped  to  imagine 


PERSONALITY.  2 1 7 

His  omnipresence  by  the  thought  of  an  infinitely  fine  fluid 
or  body,  like  the  ether,  infilling  all  space.  His  freedom 
from  time-limitations  has  also  a  crude  analogy  in  the  in- 
conceivable rapidity  of  ethereal  motion,  by  the  continuous 
wave  or  mass  never  still,  and  also  by  ethereal  permanency 
and  unity. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  of  all  material  substances, 
the  smallest,  thinnest,  slightest,  and  most  physically 
unknown  of  all — the  ethereal  wave,  is  the  only  standard 
of  measure  we  have  that  is  fixed  and  always  and  under 
all  circumstances  the  same.  All  other  standards  of  weight 
and  measure  are  ever  changing,  and  ever  liable  to  change. 
Is  this  a  hint  to  us  that  the  cruder  the  "  substance  "  the 
more  untrustworthy  and  the  less  "  standard  "  it  is,  and 
that  the  substance  we  call  God  or  Spirit  is  at  last  the 
only  absolutely  durable  and  standard  substance  in  the 
universe?  The  more  the  density,  the  more  unlike  God. 
The  hint  is  proved  by  noting  that  substances  of  all  kinds 
are  valuable  to  us  in  proportion  to  their  smallness,  fine- 
ness, thinness,  or  gaseousness.  The  most  useless  thing 
is  a  dead  planet  of  crude  inorganic  or  mineral  matter. 
The  dead  masses  of  rock  that  form  the  bulk  of  our  world 
are  quite  as  useless  and  non-significant.  The  pulverized 
rock  or  "  ground  "  forms  a  rooting-place  for  plants,  and 
helps  to  furnish  them  an  equable  supply  of  water  and  a 
few  constituents  of  nutrition.  Water  is  another  release 
from  hated  solidity.  Although  it  forms  some  four  fifths 
of  our  bodies,  its  role  is  not  vital ;  it  only  forms  a  medium 
of  communication  and  of  assimilation.  It  is  a  good  slave 
to  bring  and  carry  the  letters  of  life,  but  it  may  never 
read  or  indite  them.  It  is  the  atmosphere,  however, 
gaseous  and  so  near  "  nothing  "  that  the  savage  does  not 
discover  it,  that  feeds  plant  and  animal,  and  is  an  instant, 


218      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

absolute,  and  vital  necessity  of  every  leaf  and  lung.  With 
this  attainment  of  "  thinness,"  also,  begins  the  psychic  life 
and  intermediation — the  necessity  and  spirituality  of  sen- 
sation. The  atmosphere  furnishes  the  material  basis  of 
sound  and  music,  and  all  that  follows  therefrom.  The 
mechanism  of  the  biologic  process  is  nutritional,  and  all 
nutrition  consists  in  the  use  of  atomic  and  molecular 
forces.  Of  these  man's  mind  has  no  direct  or  sensational 
knowledge  ;  only  by  inference  and  mathematical  reasoning 
do  we  know  them  to  exist,  or  know  any  thing  about 
them.  It  is  certain  that  no  eye,  by  whatever  microscope 
aided,  will  ever  see  a  single  atom,  even  of  the  largest 
variety.*  These  atoms  and  molecular  motions,  however, 
reach  consciousness  through  the  senses  of  touch,  taste,  and 
smell.  In  the  ether,  however,  we  have  the  most  valuable 
and  essential  of  all  physical  agents.  It  is  the  medium  of 
temperature-regulation  and  supply,  by  which  and  in  which 
every  nutritional  and  sensational  function  subsists,  and 
persists,  whether  in  plant  or  animal.  Heat  is  the  condi- 
tion, index,  and  register  of  all  forces,  of  biologic  forces 
especially.  As  the  ether  is  millions  of  times  more  thin 
than  air,  so  is  it  millions  of  times  more  vital  and  essential, 
closer,  and  more  nearly  in  contact  with  our  being.  As  a 
light  wave  is  millions  of  times  smaller  than  an  air  wave, 
so  is  vision  proportionally  richer  and  more  psychic  than 
hearing.  The  letters  of  the  alphabet  are  conventionalized 
pictures,  and  on  the  physical  side  all  human  intelligence 
is  the  product  of  vision. 

*  The  smallest  living  particle  visible  under  the  microscope  contains  about 
two  million  somacules  (living  molecules).  About  85  per  cent,  of  every  proto- 
plasmic mass  is  water,  and  a  large  part  of  each  cell  is  not  true  living 
matter,  but  is  either  food  or  dead  waste  product  or  excreta.  Hence  the 
real  directing  and  modifying  part  of  the  cell  is  composed  only  of  from  ten 
to  twenty  million  of  somacules. 


PERSONALITY.  2ig 

The  inference  draws  itself  :  the  "  substance  "  we  call 
spirit,  life,  or  God — Biologos, — this  subtle  fluid,  as  infi- 
nitely removed  from  the  crude  ether  as  that  is  from  air, — 
this  is  the  life  and  heart  and  essence  of  us, — it  is  the  ego 
itself. 

I  wish  here  to  draw  an  inference  of  analogy,  and  to  fix 
it  firmly  in  the  attention :  I  believe  the  fact  that  God 
can  only  affect  matter  through  the  infinitesimally  small 
forces  that  we  call  atomic  or  molecular,  is  from  precisely 
the  same  reasons  that  radiant  heat  can  only  so  affect  it, 
and  that  His  causative  agency  is  accurately  analogized  by 
the  action  of  the  ether  on  vibrating  atoms.  It  is  an  easily 
understood  mechanical  law  that  in  order  to  move  a  body 
a  force  must  be  proportional  to  the  resistance  or  "  weight  " 
offered,  and  if  the  body  to  be  moved  is  vibrating  or  oscil- 
lating, the  instant  of  impingement  must  be  timed  to  the 
phase  of  the  vibration.  It  is  in  accordance  with  this 
necessity  that  ether  waves  can  only  affect  a  mass  by  affect- 
ing the  constituent  molecules  or  atoms  of  that  mass,  since 
they  alone  are  small  enough  for  so  small  a  blow  to  have 
effect  upon  ;  and  furthermore,  their  vibratory  period  must 
be  adjusted,  synchronous,  or  nearly  so,  with  that  of  the 
vibrating  atoms.  One  further  observation  is  yet  necessary 
to  make  clear  this  conception  of  what  may  possibly  be  the 
mechanism  of  God's  influence  upon  and  use  of  matter: 
The  ether  is  thrown  into  wave  motions  of  all  degrees  of 
rapidity  or  wave  size.  Waves  much  smaller  than  those  of 
the  ultra-violet  end  of  the  spectrum  have  not  been  much 
studied,  though  there  is  hardly  any  limit  to  their  creation 
or  existence.  But  down  through  the  light  spectrum,  and 
for  a  dozen  octaves  below,  the  longer  waves  have  been 
measured,  and  lately  Hertz  and  Tesla  have  shown  us  that 
this  limpid  medium  may  be  thrown  into  vibrations  of  any 


22O     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

length  desired,  these  longer  vibrations  constituting  the 
phenomena  of  electricity  and  magnetism.  So  that,  with 
the  same  medium,  there  may  be  produced  waves  a  thou- 
sand miles  long,  and  from  this  point  all  the  way  up  to 
those  of  perhaps  one  one-hundred-thousandth  of  an  inch 
in  length.  I  argue  from  these  facts,  and  especially  from 
the  fact  that  Biologos  can  only  control  mechanical  forces 
so  small  as  those  of  atomic  and  molecular  vibrations,  and 
that  these  He  does  control,  that  His  "substance"  or 
"  body,"  inconceivably  more  fluid  than  the  ether,  influences 
atomic  and  molecular  vibration  by  its  synchronous  and 
dominating  vibrations.  It  is  only  the  largest  and  strongest 
of  His  vibrations  that  are  sufficiently  powerful  or  adequate 
to  the  task  of  influencing  the  fine  small  motions  of  our 
known  atoms  and  molecules  at  the  degree  of  temperature 
of  organic  bodies.  Behind  and  beyond  materiality  proper, 
or  materiality  as  we  know  it,  the  extension  of  activity  of 
the  divine  Being  within  Himself,  by  finer  vibrations  than 
we  can  know,  or  by  other  undiscovered  modes  and  forces, 
leaves  room  for  a  superhuman  imagination  to  play  in,  and 
for  the  inexhaustible  riches  of  His  nature. 

I  see  no  reason  for  shrinking  from  such  conclusions  or 
from  such  methods  of  reaching  conclusions.  It  is  more 
truly  reverent  than  the  pure  blank,  non-comprehending 
wonderment  of  the  bewildered  worshipper,  and  it  is  more 
courageous  and  loyal  than  the  lazy  cowardice  of  agnosti- 
cism and  atheism.  The  danger  to  any  but  strong,  clear 
thinkers  is  that  any  endeavor  to  de-anthropomorphize 
their  deity  seems  to  dissipate  Him  into  "  thin  air."  We 
are  so  material,  and  so  crudely  and  clumsily  material, 
that  we  have  little  trustfulness  in  this  "  thin  air,"  of  the 
spirit,  but  which  alone  has  stability  and  permanence  and 
use  and  beauty,  whilst  instability,  impermanence,  useless- 


PERSONALITY.  221 

ness,  and  beautylessness  increase  with  every  increase  of 
density.  To  the  soul  the  cry  of  religion  and  of  science, — 
ay,  even  of  physics,  is,  Trust  your  wings,  the  air  is  your 
home ! 

God's  perfect  kindness  is  shown  by  the  existence  of  the 
wings,  and  also  of  the  muscles  to  use  them,  when  the  idea 
and  the  desire  of  flying  has  come.  Those  who  have  no 
spirit-wings  will  find  such  ideas  ridiculous,  and  dangerous 
desire  will  not  be  aroused.  Such  must  longer  rest  quietly 
in  the  nest  of  practical  materialism  or  materiality,  fed  yet 
longer  by  .the  kind  mother-love  of  the  senses. 

But  to  those  who  do  trust  this  upbearing  air,  there  comes 
at  once  the  consoling  thought  and  the  repeated  perception, 
that,  though  not  localized,  though  freed  from  the  binding 
of  time,  though  always  here  and  there,  though  attentive 
at  all  points  and  at  all  times,  though  most  unsolid,  He  is 
yet  Person.  No  true  element  of  personality  is  lost, 
either  to  the  pure  reason  or  to  the  physical  eye.  And 
most  contenting  of  all  is  our  likeness  to  him, — nay,  that  in 
very  fact  and  truth  we  are  His  children,  transplanted  and 
emigrated  parts  of  Himself,  set  to  the  task  of  breaking  and 
tilling  a  new  soil  which  has  been  provided  for  us,  and  for 
which  He  has  outfitted  us.  Intention,  foresight,  thought- 
fulness,  and  a  thousand  thousand  signs  of  Himself  as 
kindly,  helpful,  intelligent,  and  purposeful,  are  scattered 
wherever  we  come  or  go.  To  the  spiritually  erudite  eye, 
the  organic  world  is  a  palimpsest,  and  beneath  the  beau- 
tiful modern  writing  of  biology,  there  gleams  in  dimmer 
characters  the  significant  and  beautiful  revelation  of  an 
ancient  wisdom  and  the  story  of  divine  passion. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  characteristic  of  God  that  so  clearly 
proves  personality,  or  that  more  closely  allies  us  to  Him, 
and  that  more  boldly  and  repeatedly  commands  our  sym- 


222      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

pathy  and  delight,  than  that  of  His  ingenuity.  If  we 
realize  in  thought  a  fraction  of  His  difficulties,  and  if  then 
we  seek  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  intricate  mechanism 
of  any  one  organism  or  fraction  of  an  organism,  we  are 
astounded  at  the  inexhaustible  fertility  of  resource,  the 
infinite  subtlety  of  cunning,  and  the  perfection  of  ever- 
varying  device.  All  of  this,  too,  with  an  undiscover- 
able  deviousness  and  indirection  forced  upon  Him  by 
untoward  material  and  circumstance.  This  recalls  the 
charm  and  pleasure  of  mechanic  invention,  discovery,  and 
use  in  our  own  world  and  work,  and  shows  us  whence  we 
derive  our  power,  whence  come  our  use  and  pleasure 
in  the  power.  The  kinship  is  clear.  A  great  mistake  of 
the  religionists  has  been  to  think  of  God  as  a  far-away,  a 
huge,  and  solemnly  mighty  being,  hurling  worlds  and 
great  forces.  But  the  most  salient  attribute  of  all  is  that 
of  His  exquisite  artisanship  and  of  His  mechanical  genius. 
Before  all  things  is  He  a  worker,  and  an  infinitely  deft  and 
expert  one  ;  with  a  patience  of  constructive  talent,  a  per- 
fection of  detail,  and  a  consummateness  of  result,  that  are 
the  model  and  despair  of  every  human  workman.  God 
has  nothing  to  do  with,  and  has  no  power  over,  worlds  and 
giant  forces.  His  is  not  the  thunder,  the  storm,  the  plane- 
tary movements,  nor  any  molar  motions.  He  deals  only 
with  the  infinitely  small,  but  his  mechanisms  are  the 
marvels  of  perfection  that  we  see.  * 

*  As  one  of  numberless  instances,  take  this  extract  from  a  hunter's  journal : 
"  Who  could  not  tell  a  loon  a  half  mile  or  more  away,  though  he  had  never 
seen  one  before  ?  The  river  was  like  glass,  and  every  movement  of  the  bird 
as  it  sported  about  broke  the  surface  into  ripples  that  revealed  it  far  and 
wide.  Presently  a  boat  shot  out  from  shore,  and  went  ripping  up  the  sur- 
face toward  the  loon.  The  creature  at  once  seemed  to  divine  the  intention 
of  the  boatman,  and  sidled  off  obliquely,  keeping  a  sharp  look-out  as  if  to 
make  sure  it  was  pursued.  A  steamer  came  down  and  passed  between  them 


PERSONALITY.  22$ 

And  over  all,  in  all,  and  through  all,  the  smile  and  the 
flush  and  the  flashing  of  a  divine  beauty  that  thrills  and 
charms, — but  that  eludes  ! 

And  from  what  other  source  could  our  personality  come 
except  from  Him  ?  Can  the  lesser  create  the  greater?  A 
literal  incarnation  implies,  however,  that  we  are  not  crea- 
tions, but  that  we  are  creators.  All  our  work  in  this  world 
is  in  small  exactly  the  same  work  that  God's  work  is  in 
large,  and  all  our  powers  and  capacities  are  also  His  powers 
and  capacities,  seeking  the  extension,  the  perfection,  and 
the  scope  of  His.  All  physical  progress  is  approximation 
toward  His  manipulative  skill,  and  all  spiritual  progress  is 
approximation  toward  his  mental  and  moral  and  esthetical 
perfection.  Any  true  progress  whatsoever  is  progress  in 
Godlikeness.  But  only  a  large  and  deep  study  of  biology 
and  anthropology  can  define  what  God  is,  and  in  what 
likeness  to  Him  consists.  We  are  God  deputed  to  the 
work  of  incarnation,  and  in  entering  matter  God  must 
devote  attention  to  the  work  in  hand  ;  hence  the  tempo- 
rary restriction  and  limitation  of  our  minds,  their  finiteness 
and  groping,  ever  clearing  to  a  more  definite  conscious- 
ness of  essential  unity  and  identity  with  all  spirit.  Our 

and  when  the  way  was  again  clear  the  loon  was  still  swimming  on  the  surface. 
Presently  it  disappeared  under  the  water,  and  the  boatman  pulled  sharp  and 
hard.  In  a  few  moments  the  bird  reappeared  some  rods  farther  on,  as  if  to 
make  an  observation.  Seeing  it  was  being  pursued  and  no  mistake,  it  dived 
quickly,  and,  when  it  came  up  again,  had  gone  many  times  as  far  as  the  boat 
in  the  same  space  of  time.  Then  it  dived  again  and  distanced  its  pursuer  so 
easily  that  he  gave  over  the  chase  and  rested  upon  his  oars.  But  the  bird 
made  a  final  plunge,  and  when  it  emerged  upon  the  surface  again  it  was  over 
a  mile  away.  Its  course  must  have  been,  and  doubtless  was,  an  actual  flight 
under  water,  and  half  as  fast  as  the  crow  flies  in  the  air."  Think,  also,  of 
the  physiological  and  neurological  mechanism  of  the  flying  monkey  that  can 
rush  through  high  tree-tops  faster  than  a  man  could  run  on  the  ground,  yet 
"  with  his  head  turned  back  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  pursuer." 


224     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

minds  are  temporarily  weak  and  warped  from  the  struggle 
with  matter ;  we  are  more  or  less  forced  to  see  things  in 
time  and  space  relations  ;  the  all-ruling  necessity  of  nutri- 
tion is  on  us  ;  we  are  compelled  to  singleness  of  object  in 
attention  ;  to  dealing  with  solidities  and  masses  and  molar 
motions ;  but  every  day  shows  us  progress  in  freeing  our 
minds  from  these  bonds,  and  in  infinitizing  our  mentality. 
In  very  truth,  the  genuinely  personal  is  hindered  by  these 
bonds  and  inherited  experiences,  and  true  personality  is 
that  of  God,  not  that  of  the  spirit  subservient  to  materiality. 
We  are  coming  to  personality  more  and  more,  but  it  is 
only  as  we  cast  off  that  which  the  deeply  materialized 
mind  mistakenly  holds  as  most  personal. 

I  here  catch  glimpses  of  a  divine  tragedy  that  was  sym- 
bolized and  exceptionally  seized  in  the  Christian  theory 
of  the  incarnation  of  Christ.  The  conception  of  the  In- 
finite Father  leaving  the  throne  of  Heaven,  and  of  Christ 
taking  upon  Himself  the  human  form,  burying  Himself  in 
matter  or  flesh  for  man's  sake, — this  is  all  a  prefiguring  and 
exceptional  A hnung  of  the  world-process.  And  as  Jesus 
gave  the  plainest  evidences  of  his  possession  of  the  limita- 
tions of  our  common  humanity  in  the  real  suffering,  mis- 
takes, and  misconceptions  of  his  life  and  teachings,  so  in 
the  great  incarnation  of  Himself  in  the  biological  world, 
God  resignedly  blinds  Himself  to  His  more  infinite  charac- 
teristics, and  in  devoting  Himself  to  the  huge  labor,He  tem- 
porarily renounces  their  functions,  and  sees  with  the  human 
eye  all  things  as  we  see  them.  This  does  not  necessitate 
a  limitation  of  His  infinity,  the  permanent  or  absolute  in- 
ability to  devote  attention  without  becoming  "  absorbed  " 
in  his  special  work,  but  would  imply  simply  a  postpone- 
ment of  useless  function  until  its  play  or  activity  shall  not 
detract  from  or  endanger  the  hazardous  process  in  hand. 


PERSONALITY.  22$ 

In  devoting  Himself  to  the  work  of  incarnation,  God,  as 
it  were,  rendered  himself  temporarily  unconscious,  forget- 
ting for  the  time  His  higher  attributes.  The  higher  con- 
sciousness and  the  fulness  of  the  divine  characteristics 
would  have  been  hindering  and  disturbing  elements,  in  the 
early  stages  at  least,  of  the  limited  function.  In  plants 
and  animals  He  is  thus  perfectly  "  absorbed "  in  His 
work  ;.  but  in  man,  even  the  savage,  the  hint  and  sugges- 
tion of  the  divine  is  ever  seeking  clearer  ways  and  work- 
ings, whilst  in  civilized  man,  Godhood  gleams  out  upon  us 
from  all  history  and  from  all  great  personalities.  In  the 
future  the  God  in  man  is  coming  to  perfection  ;  or,  in 
other  words,  God  resumes  His  fuller  consciousness  .and 
powers,  while  at  the  same  time  utilizing  His  new  acquire- 
ment,— control  of  molar  motion.  Postponement  and 
temporary  renunciation,  made  necessary  by  the  rigor  of 
the  nutritional  difficulty,  appear  on  the  human  side  as  the 
temporal,  spatial,  and  other  limitations  and  imperfections 
of  our  mentality.  The  end  of  that  postponement  is  the 
solution  of  the  nutritional  difficulty  through  civilization  ; 
the  sudden  blooming  of  science  and  art  is  the  beginning  of 
the  fact  of  once  again  taking  up  His  disused  powers,  and 
of  accustoming  Himself  to  entering  upon  His  old-time 
pleasures  and  exercises.  The  infinite  Son  is  returning 
to  the  home  of  the  Father  with  the  consciousness  of 
work  well  done  and  reward  awaiting.  The  suddenness 
of  the  present  blooming  of  science  and  of  strengthened 
mentality  shows  how  natural  is  divinity  to  us,  how 
promptly  we  can  catch  up  our  old  work,  even  after  a 
million  years  of  disuse,  and  of  devotion  to  other  tasks. 

But,  with  unconscious  truth  the  old  creed  said,  "  not 
two  Gods  but  one  God."  Father  is  Son  ;  Son  is  Father. 
There  is  no  genuine  divisibility  of  the  divine  nature. 


226     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

And,  moreover,  the  return  to  the  Father  is  not  renun- 
ciation and  leaving  of  the  former  work.  The  true  Buddha 
never  enters  heaven  until  the  last  of  his  brothers  has 
entered  before  him.  In  other  words,  heaven  is  not  there, 
but  is  here  and  now,  and  no  work  is  ever  quitted.  The 
process  is  still  going  on,  the  Son  is  ever  returning  to  the 
Father,  because  the  Father  is  here,  and  progress  so  far  as 
we  can  see  is  infinite. 

And  finally,  this  plainly  leads  to  the  foreseen  and 
glorious  conclusion,  that  the  Son  is  not  single,  but  that 
we  are  all  His  Sons.  Sin,  suffering,  slowness  of  progress, 
disease,  death,  indirection, — all  these  are  the  expenses  and 
difficulties  of  the  process  ;  whilst  stupidity,  with  all  forms 
of  mental  obscuration,  are  the  temporary  effects  of  tem- 
porarily absorbed  attention  and  renunciation  of  higher 
life.  If  incarnation,  as  is  certain,  is  a  literal  truth,  then 
we  are  not  only  sons,  but  the  God  Himself.  Every  possi- 
ble thought  or  system  of  intermediation,  of  a  hierarchy  of 
gods  breaking  the  fall  from  the  infinite  to  the  finite,  or 
constituting  the  steps  of  the  stairway  from  the  finite  to 
the  infinite,  all  must  end  in  deserved  and  miserable 
failure.  Because  we  have  not  comprehended  the  finite- 
ness  and  knowableness  of  God,  or  because  we  do  not 
recognize  the  infiniteness  and  unknowableness  of  man,  we 
baulk  at  the  thought  of  the  literal  identity  of  the  two. 
We  think  of  ourself  as  a  body,  but  to  the  last  atom  our 
body  is  our  instrument.  We  are  the  supercorporeal  being 
that  directs  the  body,  uses  it,  receives  by  it,  moves  it 
and  effects  purpose  with  it.  And  this  true  ego  is  abso- 
lutely identical  with  the  Ego  that  infills  and  stands  behind 
all  living  forms,  lending  them  life,  and  making  them  serve 
purpose  and  mentality. 

Here,  then,  at  last,  is  the  final  solution  of  the  problem 


PERSONALITY.  22  J 

of  freedom  and  necessity.  By  no  other  theory  that  I 
can  conceive  is  it  possible  to  slip  the  bondage  of  necessity 
and  determinism.  Unless  we  be  really  possessed  of  the 
divine  freedom  by  the  fact  that  we  are  sharers  of  the 
divine  nature  and  being,  we  are  only  self-deluded  slaves. 
Any  sort  of  subordination  at  once  throws  responsibility 
back  upon  the  chief  or  highest  authority,  and  thereby 
automatonizes  man.  So  long  as  man's  foolish  thought 
made  him  desire  an  impossible  sort  of  freedom,  that  with- 
out accountability  or  responsibility,  just  so  long  was  true 
freedom  impossible.  We  have  wished  to  be  irresponsible 
tyrants  instead  of  constitutional  governors.  God  Himself 
has  no  freedom  of  that  sort.  Freedom  is  not  only,  and  is 
not  so  much,  release  from  restraints  as  it  is  choice  of  right 
and  necessary  restraints.  We  are  possessed  of  exactly 
the  same  kind,  and  of  a  progressive  degree,  of  the  same 
freedom  as  has  God.  His  freedom,  so  far  as  the  world- 
process  that  we  know  is  concerned,  consists  in  utilizing 
every  means  within  His  grasp  and  power,  to  incarnate 
Himself  in  living  forms  to  the  greatest  extent  possible,  to 
humanize  and  to  give  to  the  human  the  control  and  use 
of  physical  and  subordinate  biological  forces.  Our  free- 
dom consists  in  the  recognition  of  our  true  origin  and 
nature,  and  in  accepting  and  utilizing  the  responsibility 
and  the  power  as  co-workers  with  the  divine,  and  as 
sharers  both  of  His  being  and  of  His  task.  We  are  God 
involved  in  the  work  of  utilizing  waste  mechanical  forces, 
of  spiritualizing  matter,  and  of  vivifying  dead  worlds  ;  and 
with  it  all,  educating  and  perfecting  spirit,  learning  the 
ways,  the  necessities,  and  the  uses,  both  of  matter  and  of 
spirit,  and  of  that  new  world  arising  out  of  the  jointure 
of  the  two,  the  incarnation-process.  Your  non-recogni- 
tion, your  rejection,  or  your  misuse,  your  faultful  or  selfish 


228      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

doing  of  the  duty  and  work,  is  both  your  failure  and  His 
failure,  is  His  mistake  and  your  mistake,  your  loss  and 
His  loss ;  you  cannot  escape  each  other,  for  you  are  He 
and  He  is  you.  With  loyal  loving  adoption  of  His  aims 
and  work  as  those  of  our  own,  we  advance  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  highest  personality  and  freedom,  awe  gives 
way  to  love,  and  difference  passes  into  identity.  The 
shadows  of  things,  and  the  obscurations  of  materiality  are 
lifted,  the  wings  of  the  spirit  are  grown  strong :  &  Dieu  ! 


CHAPTER  XII. 
IMMORTALITY. 

T^EOPLE  generally  cherish  the  delusion  that  their 
hunger,  pretended  or  real,  for  immortality  is  a  vir- 
tue and  a  thing  to  be  proud  of.  Careful  observa- 
tion has  convinced  me  that  in  many  cases  it  is  distinctly 
and  nothing  less  than  a  very  narrow  sort  of  selfishness.  It 
does  not  usually  flow  from  a  large  love  of  life,  or  of  the 
things  Life  is  seeking  to  bring  about  in  this  world.  People 
who  believe  most  vindictively  in  the  belief  are  such  as 
have  done  very  little  toward  enlarging  their  own  life  or 
that  of  their  fellow-men.  It  is  commonly  supposed  that 
there  can  be  no  greater  heresy  and  injury  to  both  religion 
and  morality,  than  any  negative  attitude  toward  the  belief, 
or  doubt  thrown  upon  it.  But  I  am  convinced  that  it  is 
very  commonly,  if  not  usually,  of  distinctly  pernicious  in- 
fluence upon  character  and  society.  If  one  believes  in  the 
old-fashioned  "  soul,"  and  in  its  "  salvation,"  and  that 
one's  own  soul  has  a  surety  of  heaven,  nothing  can  more 
effectually  breed  practical  fatalism,  laissez-faire,  and 
egregious  conceit.  The  consummate  ludicrousness  of  a 
"  sanctified  "  and  saintly  crank  is  only  better  concealed  in 
many  who  have  been  less  clumsy  in  the  self-cheating  and 
delusional  processes  of  mind  whereby  they  have  erected 
a  very  high  wall  to  hide  ugly  truths  and  plain  duties  from 
view.  The  perfervidness  of  the  belief,  moreover,  has 
always  a  plain  smell  of  intoxication  about  it  ;  it  is  almost 

229 


230      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

always  an  artificial  emotion,  whose  strength  is  largely 
dependent  upon  the  amount  of  misery  and  poverty  hidden 
by  the  illusion  of  a  false  gaiety  and  a  pretended  certainty. 

There  was  once  a  splendid  scoundrel  who  defied  govern- 
ment and  armies  with  a  horde  of  invincible  slaves  to 
whom  danger  was  delight,  and  who  sought  death  by  un- 
faltering obedience  to  their  master.  Their  belief  in  after- 
life, and  in  its  disposal  by  their  tyrant  god,  was  made 
incomprehensibly  strong  by  the  trick  of  drugging  them 
with  a  narcotic,  and,  while  insensible,  conveying  them  to 
a  mountain  paradise  where  every  delight  of  every  sense 
was  drenched  with  satisfaction.  After  this  foretaste  of 
heaven,  they  were  again  put  to  sleep  and  conveyed  to  the 
world,  and  after  this  there  was  no  doubt  about  obedience 
to  the  commands  of  a  master  who  had  at  his  disposal  such 
a  heaven  as  that.  To  get  on  the  safe  side,  to  win  by  ex- 
cess of  flattery  or  obedience  the  good  will  of  a  tyrant  god, 
has  been  too  common  a  characteristic  of  religion  ;  and  so, 
alas,  has  the  seeking  of  immortality  often  been  a  sharp 
looking  out  for  "  number  one  "  in  the  chances  of  life. 
Just  as  the  sacrificial  aspects  of  much  religion,  scape-goat 
sheep  and  scape-goat  Christs,  have  been  tricks,  fine  or 
flimsy,  to  get  rid  of  conscience  and  compound  with  the 
devil  called  God,  so  the  attainment  of  heaven  has  fre- 
quently been  a  fine  game  to  get  the  advantage  of  one's 
enemies,  and  of  those  not  so  cunning.  The  rabidness  of 
the  belief  has  usually  depended  upon  the  proportion  of 
the  few  saved  and  the  many  damned,  and  the  frightful 
immorality  of  any  salvation  whatsoever  enjoyed,  while 
there  was  any  damnation  suffered,  was  a  thought  kept 
well  out  of  sight. 

The  unconscious  power  and  origin  of  the  belief,  how- 
ever, have,  of  course,  come  from  larger  and  deeper 


IMMOR  TALI  TV.  231 

minds  and  reasons  than  such  self-seekers  could  fathom. 
The  arising  of  the  belief  in  historical  times  and  religions, 
where  it  was  heretofore  non-existent,  seems  to  me  another 
example  of  the  breaking  forth  of  the  consciousness  of 
man's  divine  origin  in  nature,  this  consciousness  and 
belief  having  been  kept  in  abeyance  by  the  demands  of 
the  nutritional  struggle  and  progress  in  incarnation. 
These  early  shapings  of  the  doctrine  are  the  crude  plough- 
ing and  breaking  of  the  ground  for  a  better  harvest.  No 
great  religious  truth  comes  so  suddenly  to  perfection  as 
this,  and  the  belief  must  yet  cleanse  itself  of  outrageous 
crudities,  and  perfect  itself  to  finer  issues  and  more  truth- 
ful truth.  After  the  establishment  of  the  fact  comes  the 
limitations  of  degrees,  and  the  refinement  of  qualities. 
Like  all  other  deductive  and  religious  truths,  this  belief 
must  be  made  scientific ;  the  rational  systematizing  con- 
sciousness must  take  it  in  hand,  and  it  must  submit  to  the 
calm  estimation  of  proof,  limit,  and  degree,  of  a  sympa- 
thetic but  unbiased  judgment. 

"  If  a  man  die  shall  he  live  again  ?  "  The  very  wording 
of  the  question  betrays  the  visible  hope,  the  doubtful 
longing.  One  feels  the  wavelet  poised  for  an  instant  in 
semi-independence,  and  the  large  ocean  certain  to  draw  it 
back  again.  The  wording  also  betrays  the  crudity  of  the 
conception,  and  answers  itself.  There  is  shown  an  entire 
lack  of  discrimination  as  to  meaning  of  words,  and  extent 
of  facts.  What  is  man  ?  What  is  death  ?  What  is  it  to 
live  again  ?  To  the  unthinking  the  answers  seem  very 
easy  to  give,  but  to  the  thoughtful  they  arouse  profound 
counter-queries. 

In  the  ordinary  and  accepted  definition  of  the  word,  "  a 
man  "  is  understood  to  be  any  representative  of  the  genus 
Homo,  whether  he  be  a  nameless  African  savage,  or  one 


232       THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  civilization's  most  cultivated  scientists.  If  the  fact  of 
possession  of  the  human  form  implies  the  possession  of  an 
undying  soul-life,  then  no  line  can  be  drawn  at  the  upper 
limits  of  the  animal  or  vegetable  kingdoms.  Everything 
that  lives  is  so  strikingly  filled  with  the  same  mental  force, 
that  it  is  the  veriest  trifling  to  deny  any  animal  and  plant 
the  same  right  and  necessity  of  future  living  as  ourselves. 
This  brings  into  view  the  clear  evidence  of  absurdity  in 
the  common  doctrine.  According  to  that  doctrine,  heaven, 
or  the  function  of  the  future  life,  is  to  be  one  of  enjoyment 
and  general  objectlessness.  There  is  here  a  withdrawal 
of  divine  energy  from  use  or  work  that  is  unlike  anything 
else  known  or  thinkable  in  all  the  worlds  of  mind  or  matter. 
If  the  possession  of  such  "soul"  divisible  from  body  is 
certain  in  man,  it  is,  as  I  have  said,  certain  in  animal  or 
plant,  and  if  by  natural  or  divine  ordering,  this  homo-soul, 
at  the  death  of  the  body,  rushes  away  from  earth  and 
work,  so,  precisely,  must  animal  and  plant-soul  spurn 
matter  and  life  therein.  Not  to  assent  to  this  introduces 
a  new  principle :  either  animal-soul  and  homo-soul  are 
essentially  different,  (which  nobody  would  now  be  silly 
enough  to  affirm),  or  there  is  introduced  a  stage  of  prog- 
ress or  a  degree  of  soul  only  thus  rewarded.  To  make 
salvation  or  the  heaven-getting  of  soul  depend  upon  any 
such  indeterminate  and  indeterminable  point  of  progress 
or  merit  is,  from  that  point  of  view,  to  land  the  whole 
question  in  an  immovable  cloud  of  vagueness.  To  drain 
off  from  earth  and  from  functional  activity  the  souls  of 
plant,  animal,  and  human  beings  that  die  in  one  year 
alone,  would  require  an  infinite  inexhaustibleness  of  the 
Source  of  Life.  There  is  not  the  least  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  not  as  rigidly 
applicable  to  Life  as  to  any  other  form  of  force.  To 


IMMOR  TALITY.  233 

attempt  to  conceive  it  otherwise  lands  us  at  once  into 
unthinkableness  and  nonsense. 

We  therefore  see  that  any  fact  of  immortality  must  be  in 
harmony  with  the  fact  of  the  life  or  soul  of  all  living  things, 
and  that  functionless  life  or  soul  is  quite  as  abhorrent 
and  unthinkable  as  functionless  force  of  any  kind.  The 
beauty  of  such  a  conclusion  is  the  proof  that  the  sort  of  a 
soul  and  heaven  commonly  desired  is  as  inethical  and  irre- 
ligious as  it  is  unscientific  and  impossible.  "  Salvation" 
was  a  spoiled  child's  theft  of  the  cake  of  happiness  and 
hiding  in  the  garret  of  heaven  to  eat  it  alone.  There  may 
be  such  a  heaven  of  inactive  enjoyment  and  selfish  pleas- 
ure, but  God's  Buddhas  do  not  enter  it  while  the  struggle 
of  the  world-process  is  still  going  on,  and  I  have  such  a 
firm  conviction  of  His  loving  justice  that  if  His  Buddhas 
beneficently  postpone  it  of  their  own  will,  selfish  laziness 
will  hardly  be  able  to  steal  past  His  inattention.  Parasit- 
ism is,  after  all,  a  very  small  fact  in  the  world,  and  even 
that  is  usually  made  to  confer  indirect  blessing.  The 
radiation  of  the  sun's  light  into  space  is  not  lost  or  losa- 
ble,  and  if  there  is  such  an  irradiation  of  Soul  into  the 
regions  of  space  as  the  common  idea  holds,  I  suspect  it  is 
none  the  less  functional  and  utilized  somewhere  and 
sometime.  As  neither  can  be  annihilated,  they  must  go 
on  until  "  absorption  "  does  take  place.  What  is  the  in- 
fluence upon  character  of  persistent  enjoyment  or  rest- 
ing, is  plainly  seen  in  the  depravity  and  mental  vacuity 
of  our  social  do-nothings.  Life  is  a  force,  and  Biologos  is 
of  all  things  a  worker :  it  is  hardly  probable  He  will  excuse 
His  forces  from  activity,  or  His  souls  from  work.  Heaven 
is  quite  the  last  and  absurdest  thing  to  think  of. 

As  we  daily  see,  there  are  two  ways  whereby  soul- 
activity  is  kept  persistent,  and  immortality  really  at- 


234      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

tained :  by  heredity,  and  by  spiritual  influence.  The  first 
is  more  physical  in  mechanism,  and  seemingly  the  more 
powerful  ;  but  the  second,  I  doubt  not,  is,  in  a  large  way, 
quite  as  real  and  more  effectively  strong.  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  sends  his  thoughts,  the  sample  and  ideal  of  his  soul, 
down  the  centuries,  and  procreates  spiritual  children 
wherever  his  words  go.  But  by  heredity  is  the  more  cer- 
tain and  methodical  manner,  and  no  sin  is  greater  than 
that  of  large  minds  and  hearts  refusing  or  ignoring  the 
duty  of  child-raising.  It  is  towards  this  that  the  world- 
process  has  struggled  for  a  million  years,  and  the  thread 
of  purpose,  tirelessly  and  patiently  followed  through  the 
long  labyrinth  of  development,  is  thus  cruelly  snapped  in 
an  hour  of  weariness  and  waywardness.  If  there  is  any  sig- 
nificance and  object  in  the  incarnation-process,  it  is  bound 
up  with  the  best  type  of  civilized  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. Therefore,  the  very  acme  of  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  refusal  to  perpetuate  that  type.  If  the  old  idea 
of  a  judgment-day  were  a  truth,  the  first  question  asked 
of  the  civilized  sinner  would  be  not  as  to  murder  or  any 
crime  against  present  society  alone,  but  as  to  the  more 
heinous  crime  of  disloyalty  to  God  Himself,  to  His  work, 
and  to  the  future,  by  wilful  disobedience  to  the  second 
law  of  the  incarnation-process. 

And  if  by  circumstance  or  accident  child-raising  is  re- 
fused to  one,  it  behooves  him  to  devote  the  same  energy 
and  self-sacrifice  to  the  fundamental  aim  of  Biologos : 
orphans  are  to  be  raised,  and  the  work  helped  onward  as 
evidently  purposed.  Or,  if  perhaps  to  such  be  given  an 
exceptional  power  of  thought,  or  other  means  of  after- 
death  influence  upon  the  world,  that  function  should  be 
exercised  as  a  distinct  atonement.  "  It  is  dangerous  to 
be  believed,"  only  when  the  belief  inculcated  contradicts 


IMMORTALITY.  235 

the  evident  purposes  of  the  subtle  wisdom  moving  all 
life.  There  is  never  much  danger  in  simple  kindness,  and 
much  of  our  misery  and  sin  come  from  lack  of  it. 

The  genuine  "  victory  over  death  "  and  the  grave  will 
come  only  in  the  persistence  of  continuity  of  the  pliant 
and  progressive  individual.  In  the  meantime,  the  thought- 
ful kindness  of  God  is  shown  in  the  peace  and  silent  ease 
with  which  duteous  souls  slip  the  bonds  of  finished  life. 
To  those  who  have  completed  their  clear  duties,  death's 
visage  is  no  horrible  one,  and  to  them  the  final  rest  comes 
as  the  night's  sleep,  which  is  indeed  a  daily  warning  and 
reminder  of  it,  and  initiator  into  it.  From  His  obedient 
animals  He  has  hidden  the  very  knowledge  of  death,  and 
at  life's  proper  ending  His  obedient  human  children  have 
become  so  wearied  with  the  long  day's  work,  and  the 
twilight  of  life's  evening  so  softly  and  sweetly  passes  into 
the  night  of  death,  that  the  silence  of  the  unseen  stars 
only  equals  the  silence  of  the  tired-out  heart.  The  body 
has  not  been  their  chief  love,  nor  things  corporeal  their 
sole  concern,  and,  in  losing  the  body,  self  has  not  there- 
fore been  lost.  But  it  is  they  who  have  not  been  loyal 
to  God  and  aidful  in  His  work,  they  who  have  not  found, 
explored,  and  utilized  their  own  spiritual  natures,  these 
are  they  that  fear  death  and  shudder  with  horror  at  his 
approach.  Reliance  upon  the  spiritual  generates  that 
confidence  in  it  that  robs  death  of  his  terribleness. 
They  who  have  loved  life  for  the  body's  sake,  thinking 
corporeality  the  end  and  not  the  means,  such  natu- 
rally feel  that  in  giving  up  the  body,  all  is  given  up. 
"  The  lack  of  evidence  of  immortality,"  of  which  the 
complaint  is  common,  seems  to  me  a  most  wise  provision 
on  God's  part.  The  lack  must  continue  until  the  task  to 
which  we  are  set  is  completed,  and  the  consciousness  of 


236      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

one's  own  immortal  nature  is  so  clear  that  evidence  of 
the  common  sort  would  be  positively  needless,  or  even 
repulsive.  It  is  well  that  the  evidence  furnished  by  the 
motley  crew  of  spiritists  is  so  valueless  and  inconclusive, 
else  the  race  in  possession  of  such  a  certainty  would  be- 
come as  spiritually  degraded  and  vapidly  materialistic  as 
these  precious  folk.  God  would  indeed  be  cruel  to  pro- 
vide such  a  heaven  for  us,  or  to  make  us  so  convinced  of 
an  undeserved  immortality,  that  the  lesson  of  corporeal 
life  would  be  utterly  misused.  Mankind  are  always  seek- 
ing and  making  for  themselves  the  illusions  of  fatalisms 
and  certainties  which  excuse  inertia  and  obviate  the  pain 
and  fact  of  progress.  None  such  is  more  potent  for  evil 
than  this  of  an  unfaltering  belief  in  immortality,  which, 
even  if  the  desired  were  obtainable,  hides  duty  too 
deftly,  and  neglects  that  preparation  of  spirit  here  that 
alone  would  make  a  heaven  anywhere.  The  doubt  and 
the  doubtful  hope  arouse  the  startled  heart  to  a  study  of 
the  conditions  of  immortality,  and  keep  it  plastic  to  the 
ideas  and  influence  of  the  spirit  of  God  ever  drawing  us 
subtly  and  kindly  to  the  life  of  the  spirit. 

A  little  reflection  will  show  us  that  what  is  usually 
prized  most  as  worth  a  life  after  death,  are  those  things 
least  liable  and  least  truly  worthy  to  outlive  the  body. 
It  is  individuality,  peculiarity,  or  the  specific  difference 
of  self  that  is  hugged  with  an  exaggerated  care  and  fervor. 
But  all  spiritual  progress  is  progress  out  of  individualism 
and  peculiarity  and  difference.  Reaching  and  gaining 
true  personality  is  leaving  and  losing  true  individuality. 
As  we  approximate  perfection  we  become  nearer  alike, 
and  the  ideal  of  all  perfection  of  character  is  that  of  God, 
all  imperfections  of  finiteness  having  been  left  and  the 
equilibrium  of  all  attributes  attained.  The  belief  in  any 


IMMORTALITY.  237 

specific  difference  of  essential  being  is  largely  begotten 
and  nourished  by  those  differences  of  organization  and 
corporeality  which  are  constituted  by  the  accidents  of 
incarnation.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  think  of  them  as 
not  rooted  solely  in  matter.  As  we  travel  inward  along 
any  or  all  lines  of  sensation,  each  organ  referring  else- 
where for  its  raison  d  'fare,  and  as  we  follow  out  the  refer- 
ence until  is  reached  the  last  secret  chamber  beyond  which 
there  is  no  reference,  we  find  that  we  have  long  since  left 
behind  us  most  that  renders  us  recognizable,  or  individu- 
ally peculiar.  We  have  thus  attained  a  purity  and  per- 
fection of  our  deep  inner  being  that  is  nearly  or  quite 
identical  with  that  of  the  essential  being  of  everything 
else  that  lives,  and  like  that  of  pure  spirit  before  clothing 
itself  with  individuality  and  materiality. 

Whether  a  spiritualized  and  noble  personality  can  hold 
unified,  through  and  beyond  death,  the  cluster  of  peculi- 
arities and  attributes  which,  if  existing,  are  uncaused  by 
the  accidents  of  organization,  and  that  therefore  do  not 
end  with  disorganization,  this  peculiar  cluster  that  we 
specifically  distinguish  as  our  friend — this  neither  God 
nor  reason  nor  experience  has  certainly  told  us,  and  for 
this  doubtful,  hopeful,  blessed  ignorance,  let  us  thank 
God,  and  seek  not  too  curiously  to  raise  the  veil.  Perhaps 
our  ignorance  is  proof  of  the  comparative  unimportance 
of  the  question.  As  the  highest  souls  value  the  distinct 
and  separate  individuality  ever  less,  and  always  seek  the 
perfection  of  non-individual  personality,  so  our  means  of 
the  attainment  of  genuine  immortality  is  in  that  power  of 
spirit  over  time  "whereby  the  future  is  always  present  and 
mortal  life  is  merged  into  the  immortal  before  death  comes. 
Such  souls  have  long  known  that  materiality  or  corpore- 
ality is  the  scaffolding  about  the  steeple  of  life  (the  tower 


238      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

supporting  the  scaffold  as  the  spirit  does  the  body),  and 
when  the  spire  is  completed,  the  workmen  and  death 
remove  the  hiding  framework  of  both  buildings  to  allow 
the  self-sustaining  column  to  stand  forth  in  naked  beauty 
and  aspiring  strength.  And  as  in  everything  else,  the 
beauty  and  strength,  both  of  spire  and  of  spirit,  will  ap- 
proximate the  ideal  exactly  in  proportion  as  each  has 
escaped  the  peculiarities  and  defects  of  individualization, 
and  has  realized  the  unique  purity  and  perfection  of  the 
divine  Architect. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ETHICS. 

THE  intimate  union,  and  what  is  more,  the  necessity 
of  a  union  of  determinism  and  the  various  forms 
of  materialism  that  are  popular,  as  Spencerianism, 
agnosticism,  or  atheism  is  of  course  admitted.  In  a  world 
of  pure  mechanics  there  is  no  possibility  of  ethics,  and  no 
use  in  talking  about  ethics.  All  things  that  happen  are 
necessarily  so,  flow  rigidly  from  pre-existent  causes,  and 
all  attempt  at  influencing  the  course  of  self  or  of  the 
future  is  the  silliest  nonsense.  The  common  degraded 
form  of  "  science  "  and  the  "  logic  "  of  popular  "  evolu- 
tionism "  seek  to  make  morality  a  mere  part  of  the  great 
physical  grind  of  the  great  blind  machine.  All  such  logi- 
cians make  the  everlasting  mistake  of  confounding  post 
hoc  and  propter  hoc.  Because  morality  and  the  moral 
sense  followed,  it  does  not  result  that  it  is  derived  from 
the  material  used  in  the  preceding  condition.  The  truth 
is  that  some  aspects  and  ideals  of  ethics  could  find  no  room 
or  function  in  the  early  stages  of  the  development-process. 
All  early  stages  were  but  preparations  for  it.  Moreover, 
what  is  evolved  must  have  been  involved.  Properly 
speaking  "  evolution  "  is  development,  emergence,  or 
the  unrolling  and  outcoming  of  involved  plantings.  It  is 
a  sad  commentary  on  our  logical  acumen  that  the  crude 
atheists  and  materialists  have  been  allowed  to  grab 
44  evolution  "  and  "  science  "  as  if  these  were  their  sole 

239 


240      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

property,  when  in  fact  they  have  no  earthly  right  to  the 
"stolen  goods."  True  Darwinism  leads  to  other  conclu- 
sions. As  Wallace  says :  "  The  Darwinian  theory  even 
when  carried  out  to  its  extreme  logical  conclusion,  does 
not  only  not  oppose,  but  lends  a  decided  support  to,  a 
belief  in  the  spiritual  nature  of  man.  It  shows  us  how 
'man's  body  may  have  been  developed  from  that  of  a 
lower  animal,  under  the  law  of  natural  selection,  but  it 
also  teaches  us  that  we  possess  intellectual  and  moral 
faculties  which  could  not  have  been  so  developed  but 
must  have  had  another  origin,  and  for  this  origin  we  can 
find  an  adequate  cause  only  in  the  unseen  universe  of 
spirit." 

All  questions  as  to  the  right  use  of  life  resolve  them- 
selves finally  into  two  :  questions  as  to  being  or  doing, 
the  first  relating  to  character,  motives,  and  ideals,  and  the 
second  relating  to  conduct,  use  of  power,  and  the  like. 
In  a  final  analysis  there  is,  of  course,  but  one,  because 
action  will  more  or  less  perfectly,  and  sooner  or  later, 
depend  upon  character.  Ideals  are  finally  worked  out 
into  practice,  as  the  theoretical  atheism  of  one  century  is 
followed  by  the  practical  selfishness  and  immorality  of 
the  next.  What  a  parent  secretly  desired  but  showed 
little  evidence  of,  breaks  in  the  child  into  most  literal 
actuality.  For  this  very  reason  the  distinction,  while  not 
obtaining  in  a  logical  sense,  has  all  the  more  practical 
validity  and  use.  The  present-day  disgraceful  struggles 
between  "  capital  and  labor  "  are  not  the  last  results  we 
shall  know  of  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the  "  struggle  for 
existence,"  and  the  bellum  omnium  contra  omnes  so 
zealously  and  exaggeratedly  taught  us  for  twenty  years. 

Systems  of  ethics  are  as  numerous  as  systems  of  re- 
ligion,— the  latter,  indeed,  gaining  most  of  their  power 


ETHICS.  241 

and  authority  from  their  ethical  quality  or  teaching.  The 
very  multiplicity  of  the  systems,  and  their  diversity  one 
from  another,  together  with  the  lack  of  any  unanimity  of 
opinion  or  practice  on  the  part  of  mankind  as  regards 
highly  important  ethical  questions,  all  show  the  want  of  a 
perfectly  satisfactory  root-principle  and  accepted  standard, 
whence  all  ethical  motives  shall  flow,  and  whereby  all 
doubt  may  be  satisfactorily  decided.  All  abstract  rules, 
commands,  or  laws,  as  e.  g.,  those  of  the  ten  command- 
ments, besides  being  negative  in  character,  and  so  supply- 
ing no  incentive  or  motive,  are  by  common  law  and 
common  consent  disobeyed  every  day, — thus  showing 
that  a  deeper  unenunciated  principle  gives  them  authority 
or  denies  them  validity,  by  a  right  that  is  not  visible  in 
the  statement  itself.  Thou  shalt  not  kill  is  legally  con- 
tradicted in  the  execution  of  criminals,  and  the  reverse  of 
thou  shalt  not  covet  is  the  motive  of  all  tradesmen.. 
Examples  are  just  as  unsatisfactory ;  to  follow  that  of 
Jesus  would  end  in  ludicrous  instead  of  genuine  tragedy, 
and  if  all  Christians  were  as  sincere  as  Paul  no  civilization 
would  have  arisen.  All  utilitarian  systems  are  concerned 
only  with  doing,  not  being,  and  would  reduce  life  to  as 
inartistic  and  soul-deadening  a  process  as  that  of  a  Shaker 
village.  The  evident  truth  is  that  in  the  death  of  religion 
the  world  is  drifting  with  the  winds  and  currents  of  chance 
and  passion,  the  self-interest  of  one  being  limited  by  the 
self-interest  of  the  others,  legal  practice  and  theory  being 
a  sad  jumble  of  historical  precedent  and  experience,  as 
antiquated  as  its  phraseology,  and  crudely  dovetailed  into 
new  conditions,  problems,  and  necessities,  that  require  a 
broader  ethic  and  a  more  certain  perception  of  the  object 
of  life. 

The  fundamental  fault  of  all  ethical  systems  has  been 


242       THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

that  to  the  common  work-a-day  mind  they  have  offered 
no  convincing  raison  d'etre  for  themselves  and  their  com- 
mands, no  self-evident  reason  and  appeal  that  could  reach 
the  simple  understanding,  no  positive  incentive  that  could 
move  the  sluggish  or  selfish  heart.  Translated  by  the 
common  thought,  morality  is  a  good  thing  for  self  to 
preach,  and  for  others  to  practise,  and  much  of  the  inge- 
nuity of  mankind  has  been  expended  in  encouraging  ethics 
in  the  practising  simpletons,  and  in  discreetly  eating  the 
excellent  chestnuts  with  unburned  fingers.  Everybody  is 
encouraged  to  be  self-sacrificing — with  a  wink  to  the  wise. 
Moreover,  God  or  conscience  has  seemed  to  command 
morality,  without  in  the  least  practising  it  Himself,  the 
morality  of  the  general  biological  world  being  apparently 
quite  different  from  that  of  the  religious  and  didactic 
teaching  of  the  Church  elders. 

Buddha's  religion  of  kindness  and  sympathy  takes  in 
the  animal  world,  but  leaves  out  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
whilst  Jesus  has  no  word  implying  the  inclusion  of  either. 
In  the  eleventh  commandment,  however,  there  is  the  won- 
drous law  of  love  to  human  brethren,  which  had  it  been 
broader  in  application,  and  mentalized,  not  simply  left  as 
a  beautiful  but  impracticable  emotion,  or  desire  for  an 
emotion,  might  have  served  at  least  as  an  ideal  dream 
of  life. 

Sentiment,  however,  has  outrun  the  logical  and  intel- 
lectual statement  or  systematization,  and  in  the  modern 
sympathy  with  animals  (a  subdominant  in  much  biological 
study)  it  has  unconsciously  (how  often  He  does  things 
so!)  reached  forward  toward  a  truth  whose  significance 
has  already  made  itself  felt  in  legal  statute  and  social 
custom.  The  societies  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to 
animals  spontaneously  springing  up  over  the  civilized 


ETHICS.  243 

world  are  simply  founded  in  obedience  to  an  unconscious 
recognition  of  the  essential  unity  of  all  living  beings. 
Whilst  seemingly  negative  in  function,  the  emotion  is 
positive  in  character.  But  no  formularization  of  the  prin- 
ciple, psychical  or  biological,  underlying  and  stimulating 
the  emotion,  has  been  expressed  or  recognized,  and  not 
even  t.he  most  tender-hearted  has  dreamed  of  suggesting 
an  extension  of  its  application  to  the  plant  world.  But 
from  a  financial  and  civilizational  point  of  view  it  is  in- 
finitely more  important  that  Societies  for  the  Prevention 
of  Cruelty  to  Trees  should  be  formed  than  those  in  refer- 
ence to  animals. 

As  a  general  rule,  needing  some  modification  and  ex- 
planation, all  rules  and  ideals  of  morality,  both  of  action 
or  being,  are  perfectly  included  in  the  simple  injunction 
to  imitate  God,  to  do  what  God  is  doing,  and  to  be  what 
He  is.  The  idea  of  taking  God  as  a  model  of  action,  and 
especially  of  character,  may  seem  to  some  impious,  and 
perhaps  it  will  seem  so  to  them  whose  Divinity  com- 
manded, "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect."  To  adopt  such  an  ethical  principle 
of  imitation  of  God  requires,  of  course,  first  the  most  abso- 
lute conviction  of  the  existence  of  God,  together  with  what 
kind  of  a  being  He  is,  and  secondly,  there  will  be  required 
a  sympathetically  intellectual  science  of  what  God  is  doing 
or  aiming  to  do  in  the  world.  The  excellence  and  per- 
fection of  this  ethical  principle  is  that  it  is  properly  essen- 
tially positive,  but  permits  the  easy  negative.  It  is 
applicable  to  the  lowest  immoralities,  such  as  murder,  or 
adultery,  whilst  it  also  includes  the  most  exalted  ideals  in 
its  comprehensiveness.  It  puts  both  a  principle  and  an 
example  before  us.  It  is  adapted  to  the  biological  pro- 
cess, extending  a  principle  of  conduct  over  the  neglected 


244      THE  MEANING  AND  THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

animal,  vegetable,  and  even  physical  world,  and  making 
morality  an  affair  not  of  sociology  alone,  but  of  physics, 
physiology,  and  nutrition.  It  is  progressive,  and  it  sup- 
plies a  flexible  but  not  breakable  principle  that  may 
command  one  thing  to-day  or  in  this  instance,  or  the 
reverse  to-morrow  or  in  another  instance.  Lastly,  it 
makes  moral  action  partially  dependent  upon  intellectual 
progress  and  clearness,  since  to  formulate  the  entire 
motive  and  plan  of  God's  action  in  the  world  is  distinctly 
though  not  solely  an  intellectual  task,  and  in  adapting 
the  principle  to  the  strange  diversities  and  conditions  of 
life,  room  is  left  for  the  educational  play  of  reason  and 
enlightened  casuistry.  Thus  are  we  not  bound  either  by 
a  sorry  jumble  of  inflexible  rules  and  objective  commands, 
or  by  a  subjective  blind  tyrant-instinct  to  do  the  right, 
whilst  we  are  left  without  a  ray  of  light  to  know  what  the 
right  is.  (It  is  useless  to  deny  that  the  greatest  crimes 
against  God  and  man — e.  g.,  the  Inquisition,  wars,  and 
murders — have  been  done  with  the  sincerest  conscien- 
tiousness.) 

An  ethical  principle  should  be  positive  and  exception- 
less in  character,  the  negative  and  qualifying  aspects  being 
supplied  by  the  application,  the  circumstance,  and  the 
light-giving  intellect.  Biologos  authoritatively  commands, 
Increase,  multiply  ! — but  experience  and  reason  dictate 
monogamic  marriage,  together  with  many  other  qualifica- 
tions of  the  same  not  yet  legally  approved  or  disapproved. 
The  common  intelligence  and  state  of  civilization  will  also 
have  to  extend  the  application  both  of  positive  and  nega- 
tive command  over  the  individual,  because  the  common 
is  greater  than  the  individual  experience,  the  common 
good  and  safety  greater  than  the  exceptional  good  and 
safety,  and  the  common  wisdom  is  greater  than  that  of  an 


ETHICS.  245 

average  individual.  The  individual  must  square  himself 
with,  if  necessary  be  sacrificed  to,  the  community,  in  all  the 
lower  and  fundamental  aspects  of  ethics,  because  God's 
incarnation-process  is  dependent  upon  "  preservation  of  the 
type." 

If  the  fundamental  rule  of  all  ethics  is  that  of  doing  what 
God  is  doing  and  of  approximating  Him  in  character, 
several  things  will  follow,  but  notably  this :  they  who  do  not 
see  and  acknowledge  the  divine  intelligence  at  work  all 
about  and  in  themselves  must,  by  the  fact  itself,  be  lim- 
ited to  the  rule  of  God  (for  rule  He  will  and  must)  by  the 
same  methods  He  uses  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  world 
— that  is,  by  instincts,  the  conflict  of  forces,  the  blind 
working  to  ends  unknown  and  devious,  the  control  by  the 
lower  factors,  such  as  nutrition  and  sensualism,  and  by  the 
thousand  indirect  and  subtle  means  that  God  has  of  mak- 
ing His  direct  cell-controlled  agencies  bring  about  His 
indirect  larger  and  spiritual  purposes.  According  to  the 
older  theological  phraseology,  or  an  extension  of  it,  they 
must  be  held  in  obedience  "  to  the  law."  Acknowledging 
and  choosing  God  as  model  is  the  advance  into  a  new 
kingdom  of  love,  and  at  least  when  general,  the  fact  itself 
will  constitute  the  greatest  advance,  biologically  speaking, 
that  has  so  far  been  made.  Because  a  thousand  things 
show  the  manifest  awaiting  for  help  on  His  part,  the  great 
salvage  of  wasted  force,  the  end  of  war  and  of  luxury,  the 
unprecedented  gain  from  order  and  systematization,  that  is 
to  come  when  the  blind  machine  itself  turns  and  becomes 
the  conscious  and  sympathetic  helper.  But  the  biological 
or  incarnational  aspect  is  not  the  only,  perhaps  not  the 
chief  one :  there  remains  the  profound  change  in  character 
that  at  once  follows  this  free  choice  of  the  divine  ideal. 
The  human  animal,  to  whom  has  already  in  great  part 


246       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

been  given  the  control  of  the  results  of  the  incarnation- 
process, — the  human  animal,  still  unconsecrate  deputy, 
is  by  this  sympathetic  choice  lifted  into  true  personality 
and  co-partnership  with  God. 

It  seems  to  me  that  only  in  this  way,  and  speedily  in 
this  way,  will  be  brought  about  the  genuine  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  on  Earth.  This  beautiful  dream  of  Christ  and  of 
many  of  His  followers  rightly  consisted  primarily  in  a 
"  change  of  heart,"  a  recognition  of  the  Father  on  the  part 
of  the  child,  a  self-consecration  to  that  Father,  and,  so  far 
as  conceivable,  a  conscious  aiding  in  His  work.  But  the 
dream  was  necessarily  dream-like  and  resultless  because  of 
two  or  three  unavoidably  conditioning  characteristics :  it 
was  not  only  inceptionally,  but  it  was  throughout  a  matter 
of  sentiment  or  emotion,  in  which  the  intellect  had  no 
share ;  it  ignored  the  entire  subhuman  part  of  the  incarna- 
tion-process— that  that  we  term  science  or  biology ;  and 
even  of  this  human  part  it  would  utilize  only  a  fraction  of 
the  agencies  operative  in  society.  All  those  of  political 
economy,  mechanics,  government,  education,  art,  and 
the  like  were  utterly  ignored.  It  lacked  direction  some- 
whither, and  also  the  very  mechanics  of  progression. 
There  was  a  profound  objectlessness  of  purpose  that,  like 
the  typical  Christian  movements  of  the  Crusades,  led  no- 
whither  with  fiery,  useless,  and  tragic  zeal. 

This  subjection  of  the  human  animal  (or  at  best  the 
instructed  deputy)  by  the  indirect  agencies  God  is  com- 
pelled to  use  with  His  children  that  remain  obstinate 
and  unrecognizant  of  the  Father's  love  and  work, — this 
divine  compulsion  will  in  the  future  be  progressively  sup- 
plemented by  an  unconscious  subjection  to  the  authority 
of  those  human  sharers  of  God's  kingdom  who  willingly 
consent  to  use  their  power  for  His  purposes.  Invisible 


ETHICS.  247 

forces  are  distinctly  at  work  to  turn  the  world  of  selfish-: 
ness  to  unselfish  and  public  purposes,  and  to  make  the- 
most  disobedient  and  proudest  self-seeker  the  servant  of 
the  most  obedient  and  meekest  God-seeker.  A  thousand 
examples  quickly  appear  before  the  thought :  conscience^ 
stung  plebeians  devoting  ill-gotten  wealth  to  public  uses, 
founding  libraries,  universities,  or  observatories ;  selfish 
and  narrow-minded  men  gaining  legislative  and  executive 
power  for  selfish  ends,  but  forced  to  forego  those  ends  and 
to  use  the  power  for  purposes  better  than  they  know  by 
men  and  influences  they  can  only  secretly  hate,  and  can 
never  understand  ;  a  tory  or  aristocratic  party  committing 
suicide  by  "  dishing  the  liberals," — enacting  measures  of 
democratic  tendency  ;  money-seekers  inventing  and  using 
machines  and  labor-saving  devices  that  help  humanity,  or 
building  railroads  and  telegraphs  for  purposes  they  as 
little  understand  as  they  do  the  nature  of  nerve-currents. 
I  know  many  instances  of  bad  men  curbed,  held  in  place 
and  utilized  for  larger  and  better  purposes  by  good  men 
they  hate,  the  good  men  never  using  their  secret  power 
selfishly.  There  is  a  distinct  modern  growth  of  this  fact 
of  holding  lower  personalities  and  powers  to  a  larger  and 
impersonal  use,  and  of  making  the  private  path  of  selfish- 
ness lead  to  another's  garden,  or  to  the  public  highway 
itself.  This  delegation  to  the  unselfish  of  God's  own 
secret  and  subtle  methods  of  rule  is,  of  course,  aided  by 
the  ready  perception  on  the  part  of  those  who  understand 
genuine  values,  that  most  of  the  ideals  of  men  do  not  lead 
to  genuine  power  or  happiness,  and  that  consequently 
what  is  usually  called  happiness  is  but  a  mockery  and  a 
delusion  with  which  men  are  enticed  to  throw  the  neg- 
lected but  real  results  of  their  lives  into  the  lap  of  hu- 
manity. Thus  it  comes  about  that  minds  that  comprehend 


248      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

real  values  enjoy  the  parks  of  the  rich  more  than  the 
owners,  do  not  in  the  least  envy  the  owners  their  sad 
pleasures,  read  the  books  their  grudging  or  tainted  gener- 
osity has  supplied,  and  in  every  act  utilize  the  labors  of 
the  poor  servants  who  were  both  incapable  and  scornful 
of  a  proper  utilization  of  the  civilization  they  unwittingly 
provided.  This  direction  and  control  of  the  world  by 
unknown  minds  for  unknown  or  public  purposes  is  des- 
tined to  great  extensions.  God  is  only  waiting  for  the 
sympathetic  and  intelligent  helper.  The  Napoleons  are 
to  be  fewer,  the  Lincolns  more  numerous,  in  the  future. 
The  difficulty  is  to  unite  feeling  and  intellect,  to  emotion- 
alize reason,  and  religionize  science,  and  when  this  is  done, 
power  awaits  the  user.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  indeed 
at  hand,  but  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  will  be  an  absolute 
democracy,  temporarily  intermediated  by  an  aristocracy 
of  the  humble  lords  of  life. 

The  extension  and  perfection  of  healthy  life  over  the 
globe  is  undoubtedly  the  plainest  aim,  and  the  most  pri- 
mary work  of  Biologos.  Whatever  aids  in  that  is  right  and 
whatever  opposes  it  is  wrong.  To  gain  a  foothold  in 
matter,  to  make  this  foothold  secure,  to  extend  and  ever 
perfect  the  simple  fact  of  life,  is  the  fundamental  and,  up 
to  now,  much  the  largest  part  of  His  concern.  The  in- 
carnation-process has  been  attended  with  such  tremendous 
labor,  difficulties,  and  dangers,  that  the  first  of  all  sins  is 
murder,  and  the  first  of  all  commands  is,  Thou  shall  not  kill. 

In  the  working  out  of  this  incarnation-problem  and 
task,  Biologos  has  had  Himself  to  resort  to  a  thousand 
seeming  contradictions  of  the  law  of  life,  because  the 
lesser  has  often  had  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  greater.  He 
has  had  to  kill  in  order  that  universal  death  might  not 
follow ;  He  has  had  to  sacrifice  the  single  or  the  few  weak, 


ETHICS.  249 

old,  diseased,  maimed,  or  defective,  in  order  that  all  might 
not  be  sacrificed :  and  He  has  had  to  make  the  struggle 
for  existence  a  great  means  of  progress  in  animal  mechan- 
ism and  diversity,  (as  all  Darwinians  are  very  fond  of 
telling  us),  death  itself  being  one  of  the  conditions  of 
greater  and  larger  life.  In  the  animal  world  or  in  the 
human-animal  world,  if  polygamy,  sexual  war  to  the  death, 
or  whatever  other  strange  mechanism  of  reproduction 
best  served  the  temporary  exigency,  and  best  insured  the 
stability  and  extension  of  the  type,  and  hence  of  Life's 
incarnation-work, — this  was  grasped  and  resolutely  carried 
through.  The  fact  was  all  important ;  Life's  foothold 
once  secure,  correction  and  perfection  could  follow.  The 
entire  biological  process  offers  million-fold  examples  of  a 
compelled  doing  evil  that  good  might  come,  or  of  sacri- 
ficing an  ideal  morality  to  a  present  necessity.  God's 
transcendent  freedom  could  see  through  means  to  ends, 
and  when  our  motive  is  as  pure,  and  our  reason  anything 
like  as  pure  as  His,  we  may  safely  adopt  even  His  use  of 
freedom,  or  imitate  His  disposal  of  means. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  His  necessity  is  not  so 
stringent  now  as  in  the  past,  and  that  moreover  His  ne- 
cessity is  not  ours.  In  human  life  the  nutritional  problem 
is  now  so  far  solved  that  only  in  rare  and  exceptional 
cases  is  killing  a  necessary  means  to  the  progress  of  human 
life.  But  when  killing  is  such  a  means,  we  ourselves  do 
not  hesitate  to  do  it,  while  as  regards  the  animal  world 
we  kill  without  a  thought  of  sin,  and  we  would  laugh  at 
the  charge  of  sin  in  unnecessarily  destroying  a  plant. 

Finally  I  must  again  emphasize  the  easily  forgotten 
truth  that  we  are  all  His  work,  nay,  that  we  are  He.  Our 
highest  ideals  of  the  right  are  of  His  planting,  and  in  His 
soil  that  has  been  manured  with  a  thousand  deaths.  This 


250       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

and  many  such  things  are  quite  as  much  divinely-caused 
facts  as  two  seal-bulls  fighting  for  possession  of  the  harem, 
— nay,  they  are  more  a  fact,  because  the  seal-war  is  a  tem- 
porary expedient,  whilst  in  the  pure  human  mind  the  ideal 
is  the  true  coming  to  light  of  the  delayed  fact,  the  bloom- 
ing of  the  plant  of  the  long-cherished  exotic  seed  to  which 
all  else  was  preparatory,  the  plant  that  could  not  have 
come  to  fruition  in  the  savage  conditions  of  a  more 
violent  age  and  clime. 

The  taking  up  of  God's  work  in  the  world  is  therefore  the 
true  ethical  standard  of  human  conduct,  and  the  further- 
ance or  extension  of  healthy  life  is  the  chief  and  funda- 
mental part  of  His  work.  But  I  wish  to  lay  especial  stress 
on  the  truth  that  whatever  difficulties  may  lie  in  the  way 
of  making  the  principle  the  basis  of  a  systematic  and 
theoretic  ethic,  there  are  few  difficulties  in  the  way  of  an 
enlightened  mind  making  it  both  the  motive  and  standard 
of  a  practical  and  every-day  ethic.  It  is  comprehensive 
in  its  largeness,  whether  of  positive  energizing  motive  or 
of  limiting  and  qualifying  application.  Critic  folk  and 
lordly  logic-slaves  may  easily  rail  at  it,  but  if  a  clear  heart 
and  clear  mind  will  seek  to  carry  it  out  in  practice  it  will 
be  astonishing  how  ethical  doubt  and  perplexity  disappear 
and  subjective  difficulties  are  merged  into  objective  neces- 
sities and  utilities.  The  mystery  and  vagueness  of  a  blind 
sentiment  or  propulsion  of  conscience  are  brought  out  of 
the  darkness  of  individual  or  racial  experience,  education, 
inheritance,  and  custom,  and  set  in  the  sun's  light  of  reason 
and  intellect.  Here  they  are  adjudged  and  rated  by  a 
divine  and  cosmic  standard.  We  cannot  go  wrong  if  we 
adopt  God's  rule  of  right  as  our  own,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  value  of  the  progressive  incarnation- 
process  in  God's  mind. 


ETHICS.  251 

It  should  also  be  carefully  observed  that  however  strange 
the  principle  appear,  and  however  unacknowledged  it  has 
been,  it  has  in  most  literal  truth  been  the  unconscious 
basis  and  standard  of  all  that  was  valid  and  good  in  ethical 
systems,  judicial  rulings,  and  in  religious  and  didactic 
teaching.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  neg- 
lected laws,  reversed  rulings,  ignored  precedents,  and 
rescinded  enactments  that  experience  has  taught  men 
thus  to  treat,  or  those  that  have  brought  ruin  and  wrong 
in  their  fulfilling,  have  been  bad  solely  and  accurately 
because  they  were  not  consistent  with  or  were  opposed  to 
the  progress  of  the  incarnation-process,  i.  e.,  to  the  exten- 
sion and  perfection  of  life  in  the  world.  '  Wherever  the 
most  deep-rooted  conviction  of  right,  the  most  accepted 
truths  of  religion,  or  the  most  profoundly  ethical  of  prin- 
ciples have  clearly  contradicted  or  placed  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  incarnation-process,  as  has  often  happened, 
they  have  been  swept  aside  as  cobwebs,  ridden  over  even 
with  enthusiasm,  and  ruthlessly  crushed  beneath  the  un- 
faltering hoofs  of  this  spurred-horse  of  necessity.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  too,  with  sudden  ability  men  have  twisted 
their  prejudices  into  conformity  with  the  necessity,  and 
have  even  made  the  unwilling  priests  of  peace  bless  the 
very  battle-flags  of  war.  All  history  is  illustrative  of  this 
fact.  It  not  seldom  offers  a  ludicrously  sad  spectacle  of 
human  duplicity  and  self-deception,  as,  e.g.,  when  a  people 
and  church  profoundly  believing  in  the  sanctity  of  mar- 
riage and  hating  adultery  authorize  divorces,  and  encour- 
age any  form  of  legal  adultery,  rather  than  that  lack  of 
an  heir  to  the  throne  should  make  civil  war  probable. 
The  most  heinous  sins  of  one's  own  party  are  sniffed  over 
and  ignored,  whilst  those  of  the  opponent  are  most 
frightful  to  behold.  Each  of  two  Christian  armies  on 


252       THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

the  eve  of  battle,  with  equal  sincerity  prays  the  God  of 
Peace  to  give  self  the  victory,  and  to  the  enemy  death. 

Non-recognition  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  the 
incarnation-process,  and  that  the  attainment  of  the  end  has 
temporarily  necessitated  the  adoption  of  any  means  there- 
to best  suited,  have  been  at  the  root  of  much  atheistic 
or  sensualistic  misreading  of  biological  fact  and  history. 
Men  have  either  exultantly  or  with  deep  pain  seen  a 
supposably  profound  antagonism  between  biological  and 
divine  morality.  It  seemed  that  there  was  an  absolute 
contradiction  between  the  God  of  evolution  and  the  God 
of  conscience.  Hence  irony  and  pessimism,  a  disobedi- 
ence both  of  the  Divinity  in  the  world  and  of  the  Divinity 
in  the  breast,  or  a  shutting  the  eyes  to  one  set  of  facts,  a 
scorn  of  conscience,  or  a  scoffing  at  science, — and  in  either 
case  a  sad  narrowing  of  character  and  denial  of  intellect. 

I  wish  also  to  note  that  the  acceptance  of  this  as  the 
fundamental  ethical  principle  of  human  conduct  tremen- 
dously and  beautifully  broadens  our  ideal  and  possible 
attainment  of  freedom.  The  imitation  of  God  is  neces- 
sarily coupled  with  the  distinct  sharing  of  His  kingdom, 
the  according  to  us  by  Him  of  true  autonomy,  and,  so 
fast  as  possible,  the  extension  to  us  of  genuinely  creative 
or  divine  power.  In  any  other  conception  of  the  divine 
character,  and  of  the  method  of  His  government  of  the 
world,  there  is  in  the  breast  a  consciousness  more  or  less 
clear  and  more  or  less  hated,  of  the  inescapable  tyranny 
of  His  all-comprising  personality.  The  logic  was  irresisti- 
ble that,  consistent  with  the  premises,  no  free  subordinate 
personality  was  possible,  and  that  all  other  personalities 
than  His  were  necessarily  servant-like.  We  all  sympathize 
with  the  child  that  perpetually  wished  there  were  some 
room  in  the  house  where  God  could  n't  find  or  see  her. 


ETHICS.  253 

According  to  the  idea  I  have  tried  to  bring  out,  we  are  in 
most  literal  fact  children  of  God — that  is,  in  a  last  analy- 
sis God  Himself,  devoted  to  a  special  task,  and  tempora- 
rily renouncing  those  divine  attributes  not  needed  in  His 
work.  Such  a  perfection  of  result  in  the  special  task  has 
now  been  reached  that  there  is  taking  place  a  resumption 
of  the  attributes  of  the  pre-incarnate  divinity.  This  re- 
sumption of  the  Godhood  is  the  process  of  the  spiritual- 
ization  of  character  of  civilized  and  educated  mankind 
upon  which  we  are  entering,  and  this  I  prophesy  will  be 
somewhat  sudden.  At  the  end  of  the  evolution-drama 
man,  the  hero  of  the  play,  removes  the  tragic  mask,  and 
lo,  it  is  the  benignant  and  smiling  face  of  God  behind  ! 
We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  wondrous  and  glorious  perfection, 
a  true  divinization  of  the  human  mind,  whose  explanation 
and  characteristic  on  the  divine  side  is  this,  that  having 
perfected  the  nutritional  mechanism  that  was  the  funda- 
mental problem  in  incarnation,  having  brought  his  incar- 
nations to  a  power  of  control  of  molar  motion,  having 
intellectualized  that  control,  it  is  now  to  be  spiritualized 
and  devoted  to  genuine  use.  Useless  dead  worlds  and 
aimless  mechanic  forces  are  to  be  utilized  and  devoted  to 
the  purposes  of  spirit  Having  so  far  reached  the  object 
of  incarnation,  absorption  in  the  work  is  not  so  profound, 
and  there  must  now  be  an  enlarging  of  the  divine  view,  a 
reclothing  with  the  divine  freedom.  To  us  this  is  simply 
a  breaking-through  of  the  divine  consciousness  into  the 
human,  or  rather  a  recognition  on  the  part  of  humanity 
of  its  genuinely  divine  nature,  the  acceptance  of  offered 
sonship  and  proffered  kingdom. 

In  a  systematic  ethic  our  duties  or  relations  will  phase 
themselves  somewhat  differently  in  six  groupings  of  facts: 
I.  Those  to  the  inorganic  world.  2.  To  the  plant  world. 


254        THE  MEANING  AND   THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

3.  To  animals.  4.  To  our  fellow-men.  5.  To  self.  6. 
To  God.  Taking  God  as  our  model,  let  us  briefly  in- 
dicate some  of  the  duties  and  aspects  of  our  conduct 
toward  each  of  these  classes. 

The  purely  inorganic  world  constitutes  the  material 
which  the  divine  Architect  uses  in  constructing  his  House 
of  Life.  A  human  mechanic  is  not  successful  if  he  does 
not  understand  every  quality  and  power  and  "  law  "  of 
the  material  he  uses.  The  study  of  physics  (including 
chemistry),  therefore,  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  true 
education,  understanding,  and  use  of  the  world.  The  in- 
herent modes  of  action  of  every  element  and  of  all  non- 
living combinations  of  elements,  under  all  conditions  of 
temperature,  pressure,  circumstance,  and  the  like,  should 
be  the  primary  part  in  any  advanced  course  of  study,  and 
especially  in  the  mechanic  arts  and  sciences.  The  clear 
distinction  between  the  use  of  atomic  or  molecular  motion, 
and  that  of  molar  motion,  lies  at  the  beginning  of  a  com- 
prehension of  the  mechanism  of  incarnation,  and  of  the 
use  of  mechanical  force  that  Biologos  reaches  by  the 
combined  cell-activity  of  muscular  function.  The  pro- 
gressive study  of  these  infinitesimal  forces  is  already  reach- 
ing toward  a  science  of  cytology  that  shall  reveal  to  us 
the  secret  of  the  mechanism  of  His  entrance  into  and  use 
of  matter.  Aided  by  perfected  thermo-chemistry  and 
physiological  chemistry,  the  revelation  at  a  not  far-distant 
date  will  be  complete.  It  is  our  duty,  therefore,  to  know 
and  understand  the  inorganic  universe  of  the  infinitely 
great  and  extended,  in  order  to  orient  ourselves  and  to 
judge  of  the  place  we  hold  in  the  sidereal  and  solar  sys- 
tem ;  also  of  the  infinitely  small,  in  order  to  understand 
what  He  first  must  have  known  so  well,  that  infinite  de- 
tail of  work  which  has  constituted  the  means  and  mech- 


ETHICS.  255 

anism  of  His  incarnation-process.  But  He  not  only  knows: 
He  knows  in  order  to  use;  and,  as  we  are  certain,  He 
uses  for  purposes  of  spirit,  and  to  extend  the  reign  and 
power  of  Life.  So  must  our  control  of  the  inorganic  world 
be  devoted  to  a  like  end,  not  used  only  for  selfish  pur- 
poses, not  for  the  good  of  our  own  life  alone,  but  for  the 
good  of  Life.  Every  victory  of  knowledge,  every  inven- 
tion, every  device  for  increasing  our  domination  over  the 
dead  forces  of  the  world,  should  be  turned  at  once  to  the 
use  and  purpose  of  all  life, — the  winning  to  Life's  control 
of  hitherto  unutilized  forces,  and  that  spiritualization  of 
the  biologic  process  which  is  clearly  the  aim  of  the  bio- 
logic Father.  The  utilization  of  the  molar  motion  gained 
by  muscles,  and  especially  by  mechanical  inventions,  is 
the  pronounced  characteristic  of  this  age,  and  this  utiliza- 
tion constitutes  the  systematization  and  firm  safety  of 
the  nutritional  process  by  which  the  incarnation-process 
is  carried  on.  The  overcoming  of  past  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties will  now  enable  Biologos  almost  suddenly  to  bring 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth.  Patents  on  inventions 
should  therefore  be  short-lived,  and  on  many  things 
patent-right  should  not  be  allowed  at  all.  .The  utilization, 
for  the  purposes  of  Life,  of  the  now-wasted  forces  of  the 
tides,  water-falls,  winds,  sun's-heat,  electricity,  and  the 
like,  should  come  about  as  quickly  as  possible.  The  dis- 
coveries in  "  pure  "  or  theoretical  science,  upon  which  at 
last  most  practical  inventions  depend,  should  be  furthered 
by  governmental  and  common  encouragement,  the  re- 
sults becoming  the  property  of  the  people.  Those  who 
simply  make  application  of  the  great  generalizations  to 
practical  use,  should  not  be  given  too  great  or  too  long  a 
monopoly.  Profits  above  a  certain  percentage  may  right- 
fully be  restricted.  Humanity's  rights  are  pre-eminent  in 


THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

all  things,  and  especially  in  all  such  things  as  these.  A 
great  reform  in  government  should  be  that  of  gradually 
turning  it  from  what  at  present  constitutes  a  large  part  of 
its  function,  the  means  of  aristocratic,  plutocratic,  or  class 
aggrandizement,  and  making  it  a  means  of  furthering 
original  research  in  physics  and  biology. 

Our  relation  to  the  world  of  vegetation  is  plainly  dif- 
ferent in  one  important  respect  from  our  relation  to  the 
inorganic  world  :  we  have  to  deal  with  Life,  and  even  in  its 
lowliest  aspect  this  commands  our  respectful  love  and 
reverence.  The  same  spirit  that  lives  in  us  lives  also  in 
leaf  and  tree.  The  "  angry  tree  "  of  Nevada,  if  disturbed, 
shows  evident  vexation,  "  ruffling  up  its  leaves  like  the 
hair  on  an  angry  cat,  and  giving  forth  a  sickening  odor." 
The  "  stinging  tree  "  of  Australia  also  emits  a  disagree- 
able odor,  and  causes  excruciating  pain,  even  for  months, 
in  any  one  who  gets  "  stung  "  by  it.  "  Dogs  and  horses 
have  sometimes  to  be  shot "  when  thus  wounded.  A 
strange  protective  device  is  that  of  the  phosphorescence 
of  the  "witch  tree."  In  Taylor's  The  Sagacity  and 
Morality  of  Plants,  there  are  described  a  thousand  de- 
lightful proofs  of  the  mentality  of  plants.  The  plant  ex- 
presses its  life  as  best  it  can  with  the  means  at  command, 
ever  straining  toward  more  perfect  command  of  means. 
The  leaves  of  Dionoea  require  summations  of  stimuli  ex- 
actly like  our  own  muscles,  to  effect  contraction.  They 
are  likewise  fatigued  by  repetitive  stimulation,  just  as  is 
muscle-substance.  The  only  difference  is  in  sensitiveness — 
i.e.,  a  more  perfectly  acting  mechanism.  There  is  no  differ- 
ence in  kind,  only  in  degree.  Under  a  pressure  of  three 
hundred  to  six  hundred  atmospheres  yeast  and  muscle 
tissue  react  in  an  almost  identical  manner.  The  law  that, 
where  food  is  denied  and  the  struggle  for  life  is  hard,  a 


ETHICS.  257 

preponderance  of  males  is  produced,  holds  good  in  both 
the  plant  and  animal  world.  One  spirit  or  life  exists  be- 
hind all  living  things;  all  orders  or  types  are  bound  to- 
gether in  a  beautiful  interdependence.  The  entire  scheme 
of  incarnation  depends  upon  the  proper  adjustment  and 
co-ordination  of  all  the  parts.  The  working  of  the  engine 
depends  upon  the  integrity  and  action  of  the  smallest 
part. 

Our  use  of  this  plant-world  must,  therefore,  be  not  solely 
as  dead  material,  to  which  we  owe  no  duty  or  respect  for 
its  own  sake.  That  it  is  for  our  conditional  use  is  plainly 
shown  by  the  fact  that  it  is  necessary  to  animal  existence, 
its  complex  cell  being  the  animal's  necessary  food.  The 
stored  heat  and  energy  of  the  highest  cells  perfected  by  the 
plant  are  the  raw  material  and  means  of  that  more  bcwiU 
deringly  complex  cell-life  that  constitutes  the  physical 
mechanism  of  the  animal  economy. 

It  is  therefore  evident  that  man  is  interested  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom  not  for  his  own  personal  sake  alone, 
but  the  fate  of  all  humanity  and  of  all  animal  life  depend- 
ing upon  the  lower  order,  it  becomes  his  interest  and 
duty  to  preserve  and  care  for  the  lower  in  its  entirety,  as 
he  would  the  foundations  of  his  house,  and  the  integrity 
of  his  government.  The  clearest  evidence  of  the  com- 
mon duty  of  humanity  toward  the  general  plant  world 
consists  in  the  sin  of  deforestation.  That  exquisite  bal- 
ance established  by  Biologos  between  the  tree  and  the 
still  humbler  orders  of  plants,  and  between  the  animal 
world  and  the  vegetable,  is  evidenced  by  the  deserts  of 
the  world,  with  changes  in  temperature,  rainfall,  and 
other  climatic  conditions  that  endanger  the  very  exist- 
ence of  life  on  the  globe, — all  of  which  has  followed  man's 
ruthless  destruction  of  forests.  Professor  Buckland  says 


258      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  original  desert  on  earth,  all 
deserts  being  due  to  man's  destruction  of  trees.  The 
whole  question  is  of  vastly  more  importance  than  any 
that  has  occupied  the  attention  of  any  congress  or  parlia- 
ment in  latter  years.  The  repeated  warning  still  falls  on 
deaf  ears.  Every  government  should  at  once  make  it  a 
crime  to  build  a  wooden-walled  house.  How  far  wood 
may  be  used  in  the  smaller  parts  and  finishings  of  a  house 
should  depend  upon  many  circumstances,  but  sharp  re- 
striction must  soon  be  -exercised  even  here.  Life's  labor 
is  great  enough  to  fashion  her  necessary  and  lowliest 
structures  ;  to  sacrifice  them  for  purposes  better  served  by 
a  world  full  of  stone  and  minerals  ever  at  hand,  is  a 
shameless  squandering  of  precious  wealth.  But  when  the 
sacrifice  invites  a  second  sacrifice  to  fire,*  and  when  it  en- 
dangers agriculture,  even  civilized  life,  it  becomes  enor- 
mously pernicious.  What  more  consummate  idiocy  than 
to  encourage  our  own  country's  deforestation  by  a  tax- 
prevention  of  foolish  outsiders  from  sending  us  their 
murdered  trees. 

What  a  stupid  shortsightedness  is  also  that  of  our  neglect 
of  plant  diseases.  The  loss  from  "  rust  "  in  wheat  is  each 
year  a  hundred  times  as  much  as  has  ever  been  spent  in 
all  the  experiments  and  study  to  prevent  it.  The  loss 
by  "  smut  "  in  corn  and  oats  is  as  much  as  ten  per  cent, 
some  years  ;  millions  of  dollars  are  thus  wasted,  and  not 
a  dollar  spent  to  learn  how  to  prevent  it. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  emphasize  the  negative  aspect. 
Trees  must  be  encouraged,  sympathized  with,  and  helped 
to  realize  their  desires.  Very  few  trees  there  are  out  of 

*  The  average  loss  by  fire  in  the  United  States  is  estimated  to  be  about 
$500,000  a  day,  i.  e.,  half  a  million  people  are  kept  at  work  all  the  time ,to 
recoup  the  nation  for  its  fire-losses. 


ETHICS.  259 

millions  that  do  not  bear  as  many  evidences  of  their 
struggle  against  difficulty  and  denied  nutrition  as  of  vic- 
tory in  life.*  Very  few  there  are  that  do  not  show  desire 
and  beauty  hindered  and  checked,  pathetic  exhibitions  of 
struggle  against  adversity  f  and  of  frustrated  aspiration, 
If  with  all  our  spiritual  and  mental  life  we  were  to  be- 
come a  tree,  we  should  act  and  show  our  life  precisely  as  a 
tree  now  does  to  us.  One  tree  that  has  realized  itself  is 
worth  a  journey  of  a  thousand  miles  to  see.  God  loves 
His  dear  trees,  and  we  should  love  them.  They  can  teach 
us  many  lessons  that  we  need,  as  they  are  a  result  of  the 
loving  labor  of  God,  and  of  His  delighted  success  in  a 
beautiful  method  of  His  self-incarnation.  Their  work  in 
transforming  the  earth  into  a  home  is  so  exquisite,  and 
their  important  influence  on  rainfall,  climate,  water  navi- 
gation, and  agriculture  is  so  indirect,  that  their  own  life  is 
allowed  a  self-expression  and  a  perfection  that  is  denied 
to  organisms  whose  work  is  more  immediately  or  quickly 
utilitarian.  Nothing  attests  the  greatness  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Moses  better  than  his  order  to  his  army  that  in 
besieging  a  city  no  tree  should  be  destroyed.  It  is 

*The  beautiful  observations  of  my  friend,  Dr.  Wilson  (Contributions 
from  the  Botanical  Laboratory  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  1892) 
show  how  intelligently  responsive  plants  are,  and  how  they  adapt  themselves 
to  the  varying  conditions  of  sunshine,  darkness,  cold,  and  heat  ;  we  see 
plainly  that  the  plant  has  its  own  troubles,  trials,  needs,  habits,  and  all,  like 
ourselves. 

f  As,  e,  g. ,  in  the  war  with  cold  in  cold  climates,  and  with  heat  in  the  tor- 
rid zone.  The  action  of  bark  as  a  non-conductor  is  remarkable.  Twigs 
are  not  frozen  in  our  winters,  and  in  summer  the  temperature  does  not  in- 
crease with  that  of  the  surrounding  air.  Hooker  mentions  a  fruit  grown  by 
the  Ganges  in  a  soil  having  a  temperature  of  90°  to  104°  F.,  but  that  of  the 
juice  is  only  72°  F.  The  action  of  trees  rooted  by  crumbling  banks,  their 
twists,  turns,  and  desperate  struggles  to  keep  their  footing  and  uprightness, 
properly  arouse  in  us  pathetic  and  sympathetic  emotions. 


260      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

strange  how  slow  people  are  to  recognize  even  the  com- 
mercial value  of  scientific  forestry.  How  many  men  there 
are  that  will  work  life  out  in  cruder  ways  to  make  their  land 
valuable  when  a  few  planted  trees  would  in  time  and  with 
no  expense  soon  double  the  land-value.  But  we  are  in 
such  haste,  we  cannot  wait  for  the  tree  to  grow;  its  lesson 
of  slow  and  patient  growth,  reaching  through  several 
human  generations,  has  not  been  learned  by  the  restless 
human  heart,  that  grasps  at  green  fruit  and  creates  artifi- 
cial desires. 

Every  improvement  in  agriculture,  and  especially  the 
new  and  promising  art  of  scientific  agriculture,  looks 
toward  both  a  happier  farmer,  the  basis  of  all  right  civili- 
zation, and  toward  a  healthier  and  happier  city.  And  this 
not  alone  through  an  increased  and  more  perfect  food- 
supply  ;  besides  the  raw  material  of  food  furnished  the 
city,  the  country  must  also  feed  it  with  healthy  and 
moral  men  and  women.  The  decay  of  rural  New  Eng- 
land is  a  sad  and  awful  spectacle.  To  the  sneer  of  his 
big-ideaed  brother  returning  from  the  West,  the  Yankee 
farmer  proudly  answered,  "  We  plant  school-houses  and 
raise  men."  We  have  not  yet  more  than  begun  to  feel 
the  curse  that  is  coming  from  our  tariff  sin  of  grinding 
up  the  farmer  in  the  city  mills  of  the  manufacturer.  God, 
it  is  said  also  has  His  mills,  and  they  proverbially  grind 
slowly,  but  most  exceeding  fine. 

One  of  the  excellencies  of  agricultural  and  rural  life  is 
the  practical  example  of  the  fitting  union  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life.  The  trees  along  watercourses  protect  the 
banks  ;  along  roads  they  shade,  protect,  and  beautify 
them,  and  the  cattle  find  resting-places  for  rumination  be- 
neath them.  To  make  two  blades  of  good  grass  grow 
where  before  but  one  grew,  or  where  there  were  only 


ETHICS.  26l 

weeds ;  to  give  healthy  pasturage  to  healthy  animals ;  to  per- 
fect dairy  science  and  art  and  thus  provide  better  means 
for  Biologos  to  fashion  man's  best  food  ;  to  increase  the 
grain,  vegetable,  and  fruit  supply, — to  do  all  these  and  a 
thousand  such  things  is  to  imitate  and  to  help  God.  And 
He  knows  how  to  reward  those  who  help  and  practically 
love  Him.  Stay  in  the  country,  young  man,  but  enrich 
your  life  with  all  the  results  of  city  intellect ;  the  railroads 
and  books  now  give  you  the  opportunity  to  do  this. 

If  the  plant  is  worthy  of  love  and  respect  for  its  own 
sake  how  much  more  so  is  the  animal ;  and  yet  it  is  only 
with  difficulty  that  our  civilization  is  beginning  to  recog- 
nize the  rights  of  animals  and  our  duties  to  them.  Every 
one  with  refined  sensibilities  of  justice,  and  recognizing 
the  unity  of  animal  and  human  life,  shudders  at  the 
butcher  shops,  and  the  slaughtering  of  animals  for  human 
food.  Should  one  be  a  vegetarian  ?  I  think  not.  But  if 
the  most  complete  cell-life  and  the  highest  development 
of  human  life,  as  seems  probable,  need  animal  food,  they 
do  not  need  it  to  the  frightful  extent  now  indulged  in, 
and  the  procuring  it  should  not  destroy  any  type  or 
species  of  animal.  It  should  also  be  carried  out  without 
suffering.  Pain  must  be  abolished  ;  our  own  nervous 
system  demands  that,  even  if  it  were  not  evident  that 
God  gave  nervous  pain  to  guard  against  suffering  and 
danger,  not  to  continue  itself.  Any  "  sport "  that  requires 
the  useless  suffering  of  our  lower  brothers  must  be  stopped 
by  law,  and  with  the  sharpest  penalties.  Hudson's 
thrilling  and  mournful  words  so  well  express  my  own 
feeling  that  I  again  quote  him  : 

"The  rhea's  fleetness  can  no  longer  avail  him.  He  may 
scorn  the  horse  and  his  rider,  what  time  he  lifts  himself  up,  but 
the  cowardly  murderous  methods  of  science,  and  a  systematic 


262      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD  OF  LIFE. 

war  of  extermination,  have  left  him  no  chance.  And  with  the 
rhea  go  the  flamingo,  antique  and  splendid  ;  and  the  swans  in 
their  bridal  plumage;  and  the  rufus  tinamon — sweet  and 
mournful  melodist  of  the  eventide  ;  and  the  noble  crested 
screamer,  that  clarion-voiced  watch-bird  of  the  night  in  the 
wilderness.  These  and  the  other  large  avians,  together  with 
the  finest  of  the  mammalians,  will  shortly  be  lost  to  the  pampas, 
utterly  as  the  great  bustard  is  to  England,  and  as  the  wild 
turkey  and  bison  will  shortly  be  lost  to  North  America.  What 
a  wail  there  would  be  in  the  world  if  a  sudden  destruction  were 
to  fall  on  the  accumulated  art-treasure  of  the  National  Gallery, 
and  the  marbles  in  the  British  Museum,  and  the  contents  of  the 
King's  Library — the  old  prints  and  medieval  illuminations. 
And  these  are  only  the  work  of  human  hands  and  brains — im- 
pressions of  individual  genius  on  perishable  material,  immortal 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  silken  cocoon  of  the  dead  moth  is 
so,  because  they  continue  to  exist  and  shine  when  the  artist's 
hands  and  brain  are  dust  :  and  man  has  the  long  day  of  life 
before  him  in  which  to  do  again  things  like  these,  and  better 
than  these  if  there  is  any  truth  in  evolution.  But  the  forms  of 
life  in  the  higher  vertebrate  classes  are  Nature's  most  perfect 
work  ;  and  the  life  of  even  a  single  species  is  of  incalculably 
greater  value  to  mankind,  for  what  it  teaches  and  would  con- 
tinue to  teach,  than  all  the  chiselled  marbles  and  painted  can- 
vases the  world  contains  ;  though  doubtless  there  are  many 
persons  who  are  devoted  to  art,  but  blind  to  some  things 
greater  than  art,  who  will  set  me  down  as  a  Philistine  for  so 
saying.  And,  above  all  others,  we  should  protect  and  hold 
sacred  those  types,  Nature's  masterpieces,  which  are  first 
singled  out  for  destruction,  on  account  of  their  rarity,  size,  or 
splendor,  and  that  false,  detestable  glory  which  is  accorded  to 
their  most  successful  slayers.  In  ancient  times  the  spirit  of 
life  shone  brightest  in  these  ;  and  when  others  that  shared  the 
earth  with  them  were  taken  by  death,  they  were  left,  being 
more  worthy  of  perpetuation.  Like  immortal  flowers  they  have 


ETHICS.  263 

drifted  down  to  us  on  the  ocean  of  time,  and  their  strangeness 
and  beauty  bring  to  our  imaginations  a  dream  and  a  picture  of 
that  unknown  world,  immeasurably  far  removed,  where  man 
was  not  :  and  when  they  perish,  something  of  gladness  goes 
out  from  Nature,  and  the  sunshine  loses  something  of  its  bright- 
ness. Nor  does  their  loss  affect  us  and  our  times  only.  The 
species  now  being  exterminated  not  only  in  South  America 
but  everywhere  on  the  globe,  are,  so  far  as  we  know,  untouched 
by  .decadence.  They  are  links  in  a  chain,  and  branches  on 
the  tree  of  life,  with  their  roots  in  a  past  inconceivably  remote  ; 
and  but  for  our  action  they  would  continue  to  nourish,  reaching 
outward  to  an  equally  distant  future,  blossoming  into  higher 
and  more  beautiful  forms,  and  gladdening  innumerable  genera- 
tions of  our  descendants.  But  we  think  nothing  of  all  this  ; 
we  must  give  full  scope  for  our  passion  of  taking  life,  though 
by  so  doing  we  *  ruin  the  great  work  of  time  '  ;  not  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  poet  used  these  words,  but  in  one  truer  and 
wider  and  infinitely  sadder.  Only  when  this  sporting  rage  has 
spent  itself,  when  there  are  no  longer  any  animals  of  the  larger 
kinds  remaining,  the  loss  we  are  now  inflicting  on  this  our 
heritage,  in  which  we  have  a  life-interest  only,  will  be  rightly 
appreciated.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  or  hoped  that  pos- 
terity will  feel  satisfied  with  our  monographs  of  extinct  species, 
and  the  few  crumbling  bones  and  faded  feathers,  which  may 
possibly  survive  half  a  dozen  centuries  in  some  happily  placed 
museum.  On  the  contrary  such  dreary  mementoes  will  only 
serve  to  remind  them  of  their  loss  ;  and  if  they  remember  us  at 
all  it  will  only  be  to  hate  our  memory  and  our  age — this 
enlightened,  scientific,  humanitarian  age,  which  should  have  for 
a  motto,  '  Let  us  slay  all  noble  and  beautiful  things,  for 
to-morrow  we  die.'  " 

The  death  of  those  most  exquisite  of  God's  creations, 
heaven's  own  birds,  for  purposes  of  ornamentation  of  our 
female  savages,  is  a  disgrace  to  our  humanity.  It  is 


264      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

grievously  sad  to  think  it  has  gone  on  so  long.  Let  a 
woman  so  cruel  as  to  wear  a  dead  bird  be  shunned  as  a 
murderess.  She  should  not  be  spoken  to  by  good  people. 

The  best  of  stabling,  food,  water,  and  care  is  certainly 
due  the  animals  that  willingly  work  for  us  and  give  their 
lives  to  us.  If  a  very  limited  use  of  vivisection  experiment 
is  necessary  for  scientific  and  medical  progress,  it  must  be 
regulated  by  law,  carried  out  with  jealous  guarding  against 
excess  and  against  suffering,  and  the  maimed  animals 
painlessly  killed  when  the  experiment  is  complete.  The 
practice  carried  on  by  conceited  jackanapes  to  prove 
over  again  already  ascertained  results,  to  minister  to 
egotism,  for  didactic  purposes, — these  are  not  necessary 
and  must  be  forbidden.  Every  kind  person  should  join 
and  help  carry  on  the  societies  for  the  prevention  of 
cruelty  to  animals. 

Every  animal  body  is  a  product  of  marvellous  skill,  that 
can  always  teach  us  lessons  of  interest  and  use,  and  every 
animal  soul  is  capable  of  education,  sympathy,  and  rjro- 
gress.  Fashioned  so  exquisitely  by  Him  who  fashioned 
us,  His  life  in  every  cell,  His  spirit  forming  the  essence  of 
the  personality  of  each,  it  becomes  us  to  call  forth  the 
latent  capacities  of  animals,  and  cover  them  with  our 
care.  To  our  loving  sympathy  there  is  always  on  their 
part  an  eager  response,  and  many  a  man  has  been  taught 
deep  lessons  of  soul-life  by  them.  There  is  yearning  in 
their  eyes  for  our  teaching,  invitation  in  their  very  art- 
lessness,  and  the  readiness  with  which  they  catch  soul  of 
us  tells  how  willingly  their  life  will  rise  to  meet  yet 
greater  opportunity  when  it  shall  be  offered. 

Unto  a  few  the  exigencies,  difficulties,  and  accidents  of 
the  incarnation-process  have  given  tremendous  influence 
over  their  fellow-men,  and  to  every  one  some  measure  of 


ETHICS.  265 

power.  If  the  humblest  will  but  think  carefully  he  will 
recognize  how  great  and  frequent  has  been  his  influence 
either  directly  or  indirectly  upon  others  ;  and  by  reflecting 
more  seriously  he  will  see  how  much  greater  it  might  have 
been,  and  how  in  future  it  may  become  much  more 
marked.  The  responsibility  thus  given  to  us  is  negatively 
or  positively  ours,  and  whether  we  will  or  not,  and  our 
use  of  it  becomes  the  chief  opportunity  and  duty  of  our 
lives.  In  these  matters  sins  of  omission  are  as  great  sins 
as  those  of  commission. 

The  difficulty  of  deciding  how  to  use  the  power  given 
us,  or  that  might  be  ours  if  we  but  grasped  it,  the  vague- 
ness of  ethical  ideals  and  the  impossibility  of  living  up  to 
them,  have  served  to  make  men  withdraw  into  themselves, 
throw  away  responsibility  and  opportunity,  and  drift  with 
the  chance  current  of  tendency  and  Zeitgeist.  The  aspi- 
rations and  ambitions  that  swell  in  our  breasts  when  we 
are  truest,  tell  us  what  is  the  aim  of  our  essential  life,  what 
God  would  like  to  do  with  and  through  us.  The  impul- 
sion of  humanity  toward  progressively  better  life,  and  the 
inherent  tendency  to  progress  observable  in  civilization, 
both  show  us  the  simple  ready  duty  ever  at  hand  :  to  com- 
plete the  process  of  humanization  ;  to  aid  in  the  progress 
of  civilization  ;  to  help  men,  through  whom  God  is  work- 
ing, to  realize  the  ultimate  ends  of  the  incarnation-process. 
If  this  process  have  any  meaning  and  final  cause,  it  must 
be  outworked  in  and  through  humanity.  Hence  of  old 
the  chief  duty  of  man  has  been  held  to  be  toward  men, 
and  however  exaggeratedly  this  aspect  has  been  empha- 
sized to  the  sad  exclusion  of  other  duties,  it  must  still  re- 
main the  chief  of  all.  And  this  is  true  principally  because 
the  ability  and  opportunity  are  greater  in  this  direction. 
Every  day  we  act  upon  and  with  others,  and  the  great 


266     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

temptation  and  sin  of  each  day  is  to  use  or  to  seek  to  use 
others  for  our  individual  life's  good,  instead  of  for  the 
good  of  all  life.  It  has  always,  and  by  all  teachers  of 
morality,  been  clearly  seen  that  selfishness  is  the  predom- 
inant sin.  Why  it  was  so  was  not  clear,  since  self-love  and 
self-preservation  is  the  almost  invariable  rule  of  all  living 
things. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  profound  contradiction  of  the 
altruistic  conscience  and  the  egoistic  necessity,  the  oppo- 
sition of  ethics  and  biology,  can  only  be  explained  by  the 
philosophy  of  life  that  I  here  suggest :  The  egoism  is  the  re- 
sult of  the  extreme  or  hypertrophy  of  individuation,  which 
under  the  circumstances  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  incar- 
nation-process; and  the  demand  by  the  conscience  for  un- 
selfishness is  the  notification  of  God  that  that  extreme  may 
and  must  be  merged  into  the  higher  truth  of  the  good  of  all 
life.  Individuation  had  to  be  pushed  to  the  last  extreme 
in  order  to  make  head  against  and  conquer  the  imminent 
dangers  and  catastrophes  always  before  and  close  about. 
Hence  the  mechanisms,  mental  and  neurological,  of  self- 
value  and  self-love  had  to  be  brought  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  perfection  in  order  to  avert,  to  preserve,  to  live,  and  to 
outlive.  Thus  have  arisen  the  sleepless,  jealous,  and  exor- 
bitant egoism  and  egotism  of  man.  But  the  voice  of  con- 
science at  once  and  early  began  to  speak  to  the  humanized 
animal  that  this  was  an  exaggeration,  and  that  this  necessity 
and  rule  of  life  is  to  pass.  The  clear  command  of  all  high 
religions  and  true  ethics,  if  not  to  reverse  the  rule  of  bio- 
logical history,  was  at  least  to  extend  it  to  all  our  fellow- 
men — to  love  the  neighbor  as  one  loved  self.  Life's 
foothold  has  been  secured,  the  incarnation-process  in  the 
human  has  reached  such  success  and  entrenchment  that 
the  mechanism  of  an  enormously  exaggerated  self-valua- 


ETHICS.  267 

tion  is  not  needed,  hypertrophy  must  be  reduced  to 
normality,  and  the  higher  value  of  the  whole  must  be 
recognized.  The  function  of  conscience  in  humanity  is 
thus  primarily  clearly  biological,  and  leads  the  intellect  to 
recognize  the  validity  of  the  common  welfare,  and  also 
spurs  the  emotions  to  effect  it.  Civilization  in  its  biolo- 
gical and  spiritual  aspects  is  thus  at  first  negatively  a 
process  of  reduction  or  subordination  of  the  individuation 
mechanisms  and  products  that  have  been  born  out  of  the 
rigors  and  hardships  during  the  past  incarnation-process. 
But  positively,  of  course,  it  is  infinitely  more  than  this : 
It  is  the  spiritualization  of  the  power  and  energy  now 
gained,  a  development  of  the  latent  and  waiting  ideals 
and  objects  now  first  possible  to  come  to  light.  The  root- 
ing of  the  plant,  its  growth,  security,  and  stored  nourish- 
ment, must  precede  the  flowering  and  fruitage. 

One  of  the  great  reasons  of  the  convincingness  of 
pessimism  lies  in  the  truth,  however  negatively  stated  and 
neglectful  of  the  positive  truth,  that  unselfishness  is,  as 
it  were,  good  selfishness,  a  genuine  wisdom,  and  an  excel- 
lent policy.  What  we  gain  in  the  long  and  wretched  war 
for  self-advantage  does  not  pay  for  the  struggle.  When 
pursued  as  an  end  in  itself,  our  little  self  is  not  worth  the 
pain  and  strain  we  put  into  life.  We,  indeed,  are  but  one 
tool  in  God's  hands,  that  without  solicitude  He  throws 
away,  when  we  become  unfit  or  when  that  part  of  His  task 
is  done.  He  seeks  with  us  ends  that  are  beyond  any 
individual ;  His  care  was  for  a  process,  an  object  only 
reached  through  and  by  millions  of  successively  appearing 
and  disappearing  individuals.  The  mad  rush  for  the 
delusions  of  life,  for  wealth,  ambition,  fame,  power,  as  all 
wise  men  know,  leaves  in  our  hands  only  burning  ashes, 
and  in  our  mouth  only  bitterness.  Hence  arise  pessimism, 


268      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

atheism,  the  theoretical  Buddhistic  and  the  commonly 
practical  Christian  doctrine  of  renunciation  ;  hence  the 
frightful  growth  in  recent  years  of  suicide,  and  what  is 
worse,  the  wild  debauch  of  sensualism  and  luxury,  in  order 
to  drown  the  voice  of  conscience. 

Now  to  these  pessimists  and  renunciationists  there  is 
but  one  answer:  What  you  say  is  true, — so  far  as  it  goes. 
There  has  indeed  been  an  over-development  of  the  feelings 
and  mechanisms  of  selfhood  and  of  individualism.  "  It 
does  not  pay  "  to  rate  self  so  highly ;  there  is  nothing  in 
life  to  warrant  or  to  justify  such  an  undue  valuation. 
The  individual  is  but  a  link  in  a  chain  ;  there  is  a  purpose 
being  worked  out  through  individuals  that  is  greater  than 
they.  There  is  something  better  and  higher  than  indi- 
vidual identity,  or  than  that  persistence  of  partiality  you 
desire  in  all  the  self-regarding  virtues  and  vices.  Firstly, 
however,  be  it  well  noted,  your  renunciation  is  a  matter 
of  selfishness.  If  there  were  more  value  to  the  delusions 
of  life,  you  would  not  renounce.  Your  resignation  is 
therefore  lack  of  virtue ;  is  not  to  be  dignified  by  much 
more  honorable  epithets  than  laziness  and  incapacity. 
Secondly,  your  renunciation  is  simply  negation,  and  you 
affect  to  ignore  the  fact  that  there  is  a  positive  object 
worth  all  struggle  and  energy.  Your  pessimism  is  a  tricky 
method  of  self-delusion,  of  hiding  from  the  mind  the 
facts  that  make  against  you.  To  you  it  also  needs  be 
said  that  self-delusion  also  does  not  pay.  Pessimistic 
pouting  is  a  child's  way  of  concealing  the  fact  that  the 
game  you  chose  to  play  was  not  the  best  one,  and  that 
even  that  game  you  did  not  play  heartily  and  according 
to  the  rules. 

But  there  is  a  game  and  an  object  of  life  that  does 
not  end  in  tragedy  or  in  disgust.  God  is  playing  the 


ETHICS.  269 

great  game  with  lives,  and  He  will  tolerate  no  rival 
player  except  he  play  in  the  same  spirit  and  with  the 
same  objects  as  He  uses.  His  chief  delight  is  the  game 
of  Life,  and  in  this  He  loves  rivals,  because  rivalry  here 
means  co-partnership.  In  this  He  is  always  on  your  side, 
since  the  only  true  opponents  in  this  cosmic  battle  are 
Fate,  and  Death,  and  dead  matter.  In  this  great  chess 
game  selfishness  is  simply  the  ruled-out  absurdity  of  seek- 
ing to  crown  your  own  pawn  before  it  has  honorably 
reached  the  king's  row.  Struggle  manfully  and  legiti- 
mately to  attain  the  king's  row  with  your  little  pawn,  and 
by  the  struggle  you  have  learned  true  kingship,  which  is 
likeness  to  the  Great  King  of  Life  ;  then  at  once  crown- 
ing and  power  are  yours !  The  essence  of  all  sin  is  the 
use  of  the  personality  of  others  for  selfish  purposes,  whilst 
the  essence  of  God's  rule  and  aim  is  to  use  lives  for  the 
purpose  of  Life.  If  God  exist  it  could  not  be  otherwise, 
and  if  you  choose  the  reverse  of  His  rule,  disgust  and 
pessimism  are  inevitable.  Choose  His  use  of  life  and  His 
object  as  your  own,  and  all  is  changed.  Content  and 
hope  and  sacred  satisfaction  are  henceforth  yours,  and 
also  power.  Reach  up  and  slip  your  hand  into  God's  hand, 
with  a  sincere  prayer  to  be  rightly  led,  and  lo  !  into  your 
earthward  hand  are  placed  the  groping  fingers  of  Life's 
little  children,  they  that  are  also  seeking  to  be  led  to  the 
light.  All  history  is  lurid  with  warning  or  splendid  with 
illustration  of  this  truth.  Look  among  your  friends  and 
see  how  the  mystery  and  the  seeming  illogicality  of  their 
lives,  either  in  reward  or  punishment,  stand  revealed  as 
the  outworkings  of  this  fundamental  truth.  And  this, 
too,  in  a  time  when  the  vast  majority  of  men  are  opposed 
to  God  and  utterly  oblivious  of  His  purposes  in  incarna- 
tion. When  a  majority  shall  turn  and  adopt  His  purposes 


2 70     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

as  their  own,  how  manifest  will  then  be  the  truth,  and 
how  sudden  the  now  frequently  delayed  judgment.  Love 
Life  intelligently  and  heaven  is  yours ;  love  your  life 
recklessly  and  hell  is  your  choosing. 

It  may  be  well  to  again  emphasize  the  truth  that  this 
ideal  of  human  duty  is  so  all-comprehensive  as  to  include 
even  selfishness  and  unselfishness.  It  can  explain  why 
either  may  temporarily  be  the  exclusive  rule,  according 
to  the  ever  varying  difficulties  and  circumstances  that 
beset  us.  Indeed,  unreasoned  and  unqualified  unselfish- 
ness would  almost  be  insanity,  at  least  would  speedily 
defeat  its  own  ends  and  the  ends  of  the  incarnation- 
scheme.  One  has  other  duties,  equally  clear  and  modify- 
ing such  an  extreme,  and  which  are  also  subordinate  to 
the  great  law  (a  true  law,  a  genuine  superimposed  neces- 
sity) of  aiding  the  realization  of  God's  purpose  in  the 
incarnation-process.  Circumstances  and  conditions  con- 
stantly arise  in  which  any  one  duty  to  self,  to  humanity,  or 
to  lower  life,  must  be  subordinated  to  another  duty.  The 
exigencies  of  life  are  often  excessive,  and  even  Biologos 
Himself  has  had  to  sacrifice  ideals,  "  duties,"  nations  even, 
and  postpone  final  aims  to  the  rigorous  necessities,  dangers, 
and  demands  of  the  fatum  of  earthly  accident  and  of 
difficultly-subjugated  matter.  Herein  lie  the  office  of 
casuistry,  the  flexibility  and  the  plasticity  of  a  principle 
that  shall  be  adaptable  to  all  the  possible  conditions  of 
our  lives,  and  the  application  of  intellect  to  the  deter- 
mination of  any  rule  of  special  conduct.  All  rules  range 
themselves,  however,  with  perfect  obedience  and  clearness 
under  the  general  principle,  and  in  the  most  perplexing 
condition  the  most  primitive  intellect  can  still  act  rightly, 
if  the  heart  but  acknowledge  the  law  and  if  the  will  but 
obey  it. 


ETHICS.  271 

Money  has  become  such  a  measure  of  all  human  values 
that  the  ethics  of  economics  is  largely  the  ethics  of  social 
life.  But  financially-valuable  things  are  worth  what  they 
are  because  human  effort  has  made  them  so.  Every 
dollar  is  but  the  concrete  representation  of  human  effort 
and  thought,  and  everything  called  wealth  is  the  product 
of  the  work,  the  heart-throbs,  and  the  mental  powers  of 
others.  Money  is  the  tally-stick  of  muscle  contractions,  of 
heart-beats,  of  lives  worn  out.  From  everything  purchas- 
able with  money  the  dead  eyes  of  the  human  souls  who 
fashioned  it  look  out  with  significant  demand.  With  every 
board  or  brick  that  shelters  us,  with  every  woven  thread 
that  covers  us,  with  every  morsel  of  food  that  we  eat,  or  of 
pleasure  that  we  enjoy,  the  shadowy  ghost  of  humanity 
calls  out  to  us,  "  Take,  eat ;  this  is  my  body.  Drink  ye 
all  of  this  my  blood  which  is  shed  for  the  many." 

Our  life  is  but  the  surface  embroidery  worked  upon  the 
strong  warp  and  woof  of  other  men's  services,  and  of  dead 
men's  deeds.  We  have  taken  of  the  life  of  every  soldier 
of  history  who  fought  for  the  right  and  the  liberty  that  we 
enjoy ;  we  have  taken  of  the  life  of  every  student  and  in- 
vestigator who  wore  out  life  and  mind  for  us ;  of  every 
legislator  and  judge  who  by  his  own  self-renunciation 
kept  pure  for  us  the  ideas  and  practice  of  justice.  In  the 
smallest  details  of  life  the  law  is  also  absolute  ;  the  coal  with 
which  we  warm  ourselves  is  ours  because  men  parted  with 
some  of  their  life — perhaps  their  whole  life — to  dig  it  for 
us ;  a  spiritual  eye  can  see  the  bones  of  smothered  and 
buried  miners  glowing  deep  among  the  burning  coals  of 
our  hearth-fires. 

The  unity  of  all  life,  that  of  past,  present,  and  future, 
being  bound  by  the  laws  of  causation  and  heredity  into 
an  indivisible  organism,  makes  duty  to  humanity,  in  a 


2/2     THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

biological  and  literal  sense,  inevitable.  Moreover,  there 
is  a  cumulative  action  both  to  all  sin  and  to  all  goodness, 
that  especially  makes  us  the  present  responsible  focus  of  the 
struggle  of  the  whole  past,  and  the  carriers  to  the  future 
of  our  inheritance.  Thus  nothing  is  truer  than  thevicari- 
ousness  of  all  lives,  and  our  consequent  obligation  to  wor- 
thily hand  on  the  torch  of  life,  formed  out  of  and  burning 
with  the  sufferings  and  sacrifices  and  heroisms  of  all  past 
men  and  women,  and  not  selfishly  to  use  it  for  our  own 
individual  lighting,  nor  to  burn  it  out  in  the  dark  ways 
of  private  sin. 

It  is  the  recognition  of  the  unity  of  the  present  and 
future  life,  and  the  delight  there  is  in  participant  work 
with  God,  that  give  the  saint,  the  hero,  and  the  martyr 
the  courage  to  do  their  deeds  and  to  live  their  lives.  In 
choosing  as  they  do  they  know  the  suffering  that  will  in- 
evitably come  to  them — the  poverty,  the  non-success,  and 
the  malignity  of  the  selfish.  But  they  are  willing  to  work 
for  the  future  because  to  them  the  future  is  their  own 
quite  as  much  as  the  present  is  theirs.  Modern  heroism 
consists  in  daring  to  be  poor,  in  quiet  self-renouncing 
labor  to  thwart  and  counteract  the  wrongs  of  the  reck- 
lessly selfish,  and  to  help  the  Father  of  Life  to  transform 
the  evils  of  the  present  into  the  large  goodness  of  the 
future.  It  is  not  in  the  least  a  fantastic  or  unrealizable 
ideal  to  renounce  selfishness  and  to  work  for  the  better 
future  that  shall  rise  after  these  our  centuries  have  passed. 
The  religious  philosopher  recognizes  that  his  own  indi- 
viduality must  be  enlarged  into  divinity,  and  that  in 
patient  right-loving  work  for  coming  generations,  he  is 
working  for  self, — because  self  in  its  last  and  best  analysis 
is  God.  Suffering  and  renunciation  are  not  felt  because 
of  the  anesthesia  of  duty,  because  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the 


ETHICS.  2/3 

friendship  of  God  that  is  vouchsafed  to  them,  because  of 
the  sweetness  of  the  divine  Being  of  which  they  are  sharers, 
and  because  of  the  joy  of  the  divine  task,  to  which  as  co- 
workers  they  are  called.  The  pain  of  personal  tragedy  is 
lost  in  the  smile  of  peace,  and,  with  the  steel  in  one's  heart, 
the  lips  calmly  murmur,  non  dolct,  Pater,  non  dolet ! 

Men's  lives  themselves  are  ratable  in  money  values. 
Our  greatest  capitalist  could  but  lately  have  gone  to 
Brazil  and  could  have  bought  outright  something  less  than 
half  a  million  of  enslaved  human  beings.  In  the  labor- 
market  to-day  the  average  wage  in  our  country  is  about 
$300  a  year,  or  an  average  life  is  worth  about  $6,000. 

It  Is  plain  that  the  extreme  of  wasteful  luxury  of  our 
rich  citizens  is  an  appalling  sin.  Without  lessening  the 
stimulus  of  enterprise  due  to  desired  wealth,  society  must 
legally  demand  accountability  of  its  criminal  rich,  and  must 
undertake  to  limit  the  acquirement  of  great  fortunes.  A 
sharp  inheritance-tax  is  not  only  not  unjust,  but  is  better 
for  the  heir  himself.  Fortunes  drawn  directly  from  the 
labor  and  suffering  of  the  many,  by  the  Machiavellian  cun- 
ning of  interested  law-makers,  are  such  outrages  that  they 
should  not  be  longer  encouraged.  The  toadying  to  the  rich 
by  the  poor  is  one  of  the  incentives  of  wealth-hoarding, 
and  when  an  enlightened  general  public  shall  by  social 
fashions  and  acts  condemn  the  parasitic  profligate,  wealth 
used  solely  for  self-gratification  will  make  the  user  so 
ashamed  that  he  will  join  the  ranks  of  the  good  and  those 
of  simpler  lives.  The  infamy  of  a  rich  rout  pretending  to 
be  a  Christian,  and  of  millionaires  worshipping  a  God  who 
condemned  them  and  their  riches  as  Jesus  did,  must  soon 
become  too  ludicrous  even  for  themselves  and  their 
worshipful  priests  to  stomach.  The  sinfulness  of  mis- 
acquired  and  misused  wealth  arises  from  the  fact  that 


274     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

the  progress  of  the  systematization  and  security  of  the 
nutritional  problem  in  civilization  is  thereby  hindered  and 
millions  are  chained  to  the  slavery  of  insecurity.  If  all 
crops  should  fail,  the  world  would  starve  to  death  in 
about  two  years.  That  in  some  aspects  and  ways  wealth 
serves  to  increase  the  security,  and  that  release  of  millions 
from  that  slavery  would  frequently  result  in  the  misuse  of 
the  freedom,  is  no  valid  argument  against  the  essential 
principle.  There  are  many  things  that  money  cannot  buy, 
but  which  one  cannot  obtain  without  some  money.  So  fast 
as  men  become  capable  of  using  leisure  for  God's  purposes, 
so  fast  will  the  fact  and  misuse  of  wealth  be  limited.  So 
long,  therefore,  as  the  poor  misuse  their  little  leisure,  they 
have  no  argument  to  bear  against  the  rich  for  misusing 
their  great  leisure. 

There  is  thus  always  a  return  to  the  truth  of  the  spiritu- 
alization  of  power  and  character,  as  being  Life's  end  and 
aim.  The  good  man,  whether  rich  or  poor,  will  be  he  who 
uses  time,  opportunity,  and  power  to  help  men  carry  out 
the  extension  and  perfection  of  Life.  The  selfish  rich  man's 
sin  is  greater  than  that  of  the  selfish  poor  man,  because  his 
opportunity  and  power  are  greater  ;  and,  as  the  immortal 
author  of  Unto  This  Last  has  incontrovertibly  proved,  a 
rich  good  man  is  quite  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  he  is 
good,  he  will  soon  become  poor  by  aiding  the  aspiring 
poorer  to  realize  their  hidden  lives,  and  in  helping  on  God's 
evident  purposes.  The  poor  seek  relief  from  labor,  but 
labor,  even  some  physical  labor,  is  the  condition  of  health 
both  physiological  and  moral.  It  is  excess  of  labor,  impos- 
sibility of  rest,  and  labor  in  deadly  conditions  and  circum- 
stances, that  are  the  real  evils. 

The  care,  guidance,  and  best  use  of  self  has  peculiar 
value  from  the  fact  that  our  body,  mind,  and  life  are  the 


ETHICS.  275 

powers  and  things  in  this  world  over  which  we  have  the 
most  complete  control.  Individualization  is  God's  method 
of  dividing  work,  and  of  deputing  responsibility.  It  fol- 
lows that  an  object  and  a  reality  lie  behind  the  process 
that  are  far  greater  and  more  valuable  than  any  part  of  it, 
and  thus  arises  the  logical  need  of  modesty  and  of  a  con- 
stant guard  against  over-valuation  of  self.  In  making  us 
a  deputy,  and  in  setting  apart  for  us  a  limited  field  of 
work,  the  autonomy  of  self  is  created  ;  but  even  this  gov- 
ernment is  a  limited  monarchy,  never  an  irresponsible 
autocracy.  A  ruler  who  uses  his  power  with  unselfish 
regard  for  the  good  of  his  people  will  be  given  even  un- 
constitutional powers,  and  so,  as  we  learn  the  right  use  of 
this  wondrous  mechanism  of  self,  the  limitations  of  our 
control  and  power  with  it  are  by  God  most  willingly 
widened.  This  He  is  glad  to  accord,  and  only  men's  dis- 
loyalty and  selfishness  prevent  a  marvellous  extension  to 
them  of  power  and  freedom.  To  every  one  are  given  some 
peculiarity  and  uniqueness  of  capacity  or  of  responsibility. 
The  chief  duty  to  self  therefore  consists  in  utilizing  the 
gift  for  the  benefit  of  Life's  purposes. 

The  failure  to  thus  improve  the  talent  entrusted  to  us 
comes  from  many  causes  ;  for  example :  slavery  to  toil, 
or  the  great  necessity  of  nutrition.  This  may  often  be 
lessened  by  wise  renunciation  of  luxury,  and  by  the  en- 
joyment and  utilization  of  those  simple  things  that  at 
last  constitute  the  great  good  of  life.  Most  people,  even 
the  very  poor,  waste  sustenance  and  leisure.  To  this  end 
a  careful  cultivation  of  the  devising  intellect,  such  as  God 
shows  in  every  organism,  would  largely  spare  the  pain  and 
friction  of  life.  Man  is  almost  the  only  wasteful  animal 
in  the  world.  Another  method  of  utilization  of  life  lies 
in  the  forethought  and  in  the  heroic  energy  to  realize  the 


2/6      THE  MEANING  AND    THE   METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

essential  work  of  life  without  sad  experimentation  and 
preliminary  failures.  Toward  the  end  of  life  we  all  see 
how  we  could  have  come  to  our  life-work  quicker  and 
more  certainly  had -we  but  followed  the  more  or  less 
clearly  seen  way  thereto,  instead  of  acting  upon  whim 
and  immature  resolutions.  We  allow  our  young  to 
blunder  and  stumble  into  life,  which  is  as  bad  as  the 
former  method  of  driving  them  from  birth  into  a  cast-iron 
machine  of  circumstance  by  parental  authority  or  class- 
condition.  Cannot  we  learn  the  trend  of  character  in 
young  minds,  and  by  kindly  sympathy  and  wise  direction 
get  them  at  their  proper  life-work  earlier  and  better? 
Only  few  know  how  much  the  work  of  life  and  the  eleva- 
tion of  civilization  depends  upon  right  education  and 
adequate  training.  We  greatly  need  a  class  of  good  books 
to  put  in  the  hands  of  young  people,  books  that  shall 
aid  them  to  a  healthy  self-knowledge,  and  teach  them 
how  to  make  the  most  of  themselves,  how  to  decide  what 
are  worthy  aims  and  what  is  true  success,  and  to  keep 
them  from  wasting  their  lives  in  futile  attempts,  self- 
delusions,  and  ignoble  desires.*  It  is  the  country  lads, 
the  farmer's  boys  and  girls,  that  need  these  most  ;  those 
far  removed  from  the  influence  of  brighter  minds,  and 
that  are  dumbly  groping  their  way  to  an  unseen  light. 
These  need  to  be  taught  to  see  the  world  about  them, 
to  understand  it,  and  to  utilize  the  wasted  values  and 

*  "  Oh  that  I  had  known  the  art  of  life,  or  found  some  book  or  some  man 
to  tell  me  how  to  live,  to  take  exercise,  etc.  But  I  found  no  one  and  so 
here  I  am." — THEODORE  PARKER  (shortly  before  death}. 

"  It  is  not  to  die,  or  even  to  die  of  hunger,  that  makes  a  man  wretched. 
Many  men  have  died  ;  all  men  must  die.  But  it  is  to  live  miserable,  we 
know  not  why  ;  to  work  sore  and  yet  gain  nothing  ;  to  be  heart- worn,  weary, 
yet  isolated,  unrelated,  girt  in  with  a  cold  universal  Laissez-faire." 

CARLYLE. 


ETHICS.  277 

opportunities  slipping  through  their  hands  and  past  their 
doors  every  day. 

"  This  world  is  a  world  of  joy  to  me,  because  I  have 
tried  to  do  my  duty."  These  are  the  words  of  a  noble 
man,  and  this  is  the  experience  of  every  normal-minded 
person.  Tragedy  and  suffering  may  in  part  result  from 
heroic  adherence  to  duty,  but  they  are  more  certainly  due 
to  other  qualities  and  characteristics  too  rigidly  and  mor- 
bidly pursued.  What  we  need  to  make  us  all  happy  is 
easy  renunciation  of  worldly  ambitions  in  obedience  to 
serene  and  clear  ideals  of  honor  and  duty.  Dare  to  be 
poor,  and  unfamous !  In  all  the  world  and  in  whateve 
position  one  finds  himself  there  is  joy  to  be  had,  and 
peaceful  brightness.  Almost  everywhere  there  are  sun- 
shine, trees,  grass,  breezes,  health,  and  delight  in  being. 
And  even  where  these  are  not,  there  is  the  possibility  of  a 
fountain  of  subjective  happiness  that  would  spontaneously 
bubble  in  lightsome  laughter  if  we  would  but  permit  the 
playful  divinity  at  the  heart  of  us  to  do  His  will.  Give 
the  rein  to  God !  Take  your  little  tragedy  out  of  God's 
way,  and  let  Him  flood  your  life  with  His  rich  love  and 
ample  content.  Do  not  be  so  selfish,  so  earnest,  so  mor- 
bidly careful  of  yourself,  and  of  the  future.  Let  Him 
have  His  way.  Observe  Him,  and  learn  of  Him.  Let 
the  avaricious  have  the  money,  and  let  the  ambitious  have 
the  fame  ;  let  us  never  give  place  in  our  own  hearts  to 
envy.  Why  should  we  not  live  in  the  day  and  bask  in  its 
brightness — why  not  love  even  those  that  are  hateful  and 
that  are  unjust  to  us?  Our  own  happiness  is  too  precious 
to  spoil  it  with  hatred,  and  the  world's  happiness  is  too 
easily  lost  to  endanger  it  with  our  personal  animosities. 
Nothing  is  more  apparent  to  me  than  that  the  dear 
Father  of  Life  is  a  calmly  joyous  and  serenely  happy 


2/8      THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

Being.  The  tragedy  and  suffering  of  the  world's  past 
have  been  the  inobviable  consequences  of  the  struggle  of 
Life  to  get  Himself  firmly  entrenched  in  the  inorganic 
world.  The  struggle  is  in  large  part  now  over.  The 
domination  of  physical  forces  is  assured,  and  henceforth 
the  world  is  to  blossom  as  a  garden.  Out  from  every 
wondrous  bundle  of  material  atoms  reined  by  Biologos 
into  a  marvellous  mechanism  of  organization — out  from 
every  swirling  system  of  cells  there  shall  gush  the  lark- 
song  of  the  visible-invisible,  victoriously-happy  God,  sing- 
ing because  song  and  gladness  are  the  very  heart  of  Him. 
Oh,  if  we  would  only  ourselves  be  happy ;  if  we  would  be 
aidful  and  kind  to  others ;  if  we  would  help  Him, — nay, 
if  we  would  only  allow  Him  to  be  happy,  Him  in  us  ! 

What  we  all  need  is  loyalty,  firmly  seized  and  devo- 
tedly adhered  to,  from  childhood  to  the  end ;  Loyalty  to 
our  aspirations,  planted  always  in  the  young  bosom  by 
God's  own  hand  ;  loyalty  to  purity,  heaven's  own  light, 
that  we  bring  with  us  into  life,  that  "  lies  about  us  in  our 
infancy,"  and  that  never  need  "  fade  into  the  light  of 
common  day  "  ;  loyalty  to  honor,  that  patrimony  we  too 
soon  barter  for  less,  valuable  things  ;  loyalty  to  reason  and 
intellect,  that,  if  adhered  to,  would  save  us  suffering  and 
tragedy,  self-deception  and  will-o-the-wisp  swamps ;  loy- 
alty to  our  true  inner  and  higher  self,  which  itself  is 
literally  loyalty  to  God.  If,  as  believed,  the  diffused  yet 
unitary  being  of  God,  while  retaining  true  personality 
and  self-centering,  is  the  infinitely  divided  life  and  gov- 
ernment of  every  living  cell,  and  the  ultimate  reality  or 
mind  of  every  individualization,  it  follows  that  our  duty 
to  Him  is  clearly  that  of  carrying  out  the  work  we  are  set 
to  do,  the  work  of  fusing  loyally  our  share  of  the  labor, 
all  our  powers  and  influences,  into  the  greater  work  of 


ETHICS.  279 

which  we  are,  and  are  to  perform,  a  part.  The  plainest 
fact  of  individualization  and  incarnation  is  divided  func- 
tion, deputized  responsibility,  a  work  to  be  done  by 
infinite  agencies,  but  all  of  them  directly  held  of  God. 
The  human  being  is  the  highest  and  most  trusted  of  these 
agencies,  the  one  to  which  all  others  lead,  and  the  divine 
Father  is  clearly  awaiting  the  ripening  process  of  incarna- 
tion and  the  recognition  of  their  office  by  His  highest 
children,  in  order  to  hand  over  to  them  progressively 
greater  fulness  of  life  and  authority.  To  accept  His  work 
and  His  aims  as  our  own  is  the  essence  of  our  duty 
to  Him.  In  this  loyal  acceptance  and  righteous  use 
we  come  to  an  ever-increasing  sharing  of  the  divine  nature 
and  personality,  a  likeness  to  and  union  with  Him. 
In  this  way  we  love  Him,  as  the  infinitely  lovable; 
sympathize  with  and  help  Him,  the  patient,  ever  active, 
and  kind  ;  revere  Him  as  the  holy  and  pure  ideal  to  which 
we  draw  ourselves  and  are  subtly  drawn.  But  we  are  not 
abashed  or  overpowered  by  His  presence,  our  faces  are 
not  solemn,  nor  are  our  prayers  groans.  Laughter,  humor, 
and  wit,  at  first  hidden  by  the  sternness  and  rigor  of  the 
struggle  with  matter  in  the  beginning  of  the  incarnation- 
process,  break  forth  so  soon  as  the  serious  work  and  sure 
foothold  is  secure,  break  forth  ever  more  in  man,  the 
being  nearest  Himself.  The  brightness  and  gayety  of 
children  fresh  from  His  hand  are  perpetual  intimations 
that  the  divine  Father  of  exuberant  life  delights  in  play, 
and  is  Himself  a  glad  and  happy  being.  Finally,  the 
superb  and  elusive  smile  of  beauty,  gleaming  through  the 
evolution-tragedy  and  lighting  the  hills  of  all  life,  tells  us 
that  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  day  and  of  a 
revelation  of  Himself  by  new  attributes  of  spiritual  joy 
and  glory. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
BEAUTY. 

THOUGH  prevented  from  any  extended  discussion 
of  esthetics,  I  cannot  forbear  mention  of  a  few 
thoughts  with  which  I  have  been  impressed  about 
the  beautiful.  Here  is  something  that  should  palsy  the 
tongue  and  pen  of  every  atheist,  materialist,  utilitarian, 
or  necessitarian.  Its  existence  confutes  all  philosophies 
except  those  predicating  a  free  and  exquisite  intelligence 
in  Life.  It  is  the  most  convincing  of  all  "  arguments"  of 
God's  existence,  and  of  what  is  better  than  mere  exist- 
ence, of  His  non-utilitarian,  non-solemn  loveliness.  It 
appeals  with  immediate  power  to  all  those  who  have  eyes 
to  see,  or  with  logical  power  to  conclude  from  perfect 
premises  to  certain  conclusions.  Even  if  "accidental"  it 
is  logically  unaccountable  to  any  except  the  God-per- 
ceiver.  But  it  is  not  in  any  sense  accidental.  It  is 
plainly  introduced  into  the  incarnation-process  as  a  pure 
ab  extra  gratuity,  an  often  expensive  luxury  and  adden- 
dum to  that  process,  thrust  into  it  as  if  with  conscious 
purpose  to  throw  a  light  of  hope  and  joy  into  the  bitter- 
ness of  the  struggle,  and  to  shoot  among  the  darkness  of 
our  materiality  a  brightening  shaft  of  heaven's  own  light. 
I  wish  particularly  to  suggest  notice  of  the  fact  that 
beauty  is  ready  and  waiting  to  endow  all  things  whenever 
the  overmastering  necessity  of  nutrition  does  not  forbid. 
Thus  well-armed  and  stinging  insects  are  usually  endowed 

280 


BEAUTY.  28l 

with  high  colors.  Drummond  says  that  two  families  of 
African  butterflies  are  inedible,  and  these  have  brilliant 
colorings  and  are  bold  in  showing  themselves.  The 
edible  are  neutral-colored  and  of  hiding  habits.  The 
beautiful-plumaged  bird  is  not  usually  the  sitter,  which  is 
refused  adornment  in  order  while  brooding  not  to  invite 
attack.  The  covered  nest  is  an  expense  of  the  excep- 
tional bright-feathered  sitter.  Birds  that  can  escape  danger, 
as  the  lightning-like  humming-bird,  that  superb  incarnate 
glance  of  God's  eye  at  the  flower  (as  if  some  one  said 
there  is  a  single  blossom  not  beautiful !),  are  at  once  robed 
in  effulgent  beauty.*  Woman  was  evidently  endowed 
with  her  splendid  charm  quite  early  enough  to  bring  war 
and  tragedy  into  all  history.  The  flower  is  not  a 
mere  splash  of  color — which  would  have  been  sufficient  to 
attract  the  bee's  attention, — but  a  symmetry  of  tint, 
shading,  and  harmony,  as  if  an  angel's  love-song  had 
been  crystallized  into  the  folded  and  rainbowed  petals, 
its  perfume  the  breath  of  his  sighing  lips.  A  thousand 

*  "  In  their  plumage,  as  Martin  long  ago  wrote,  nature  has  strained  at 
every  variety  of  effect  and  revelled  in  an  infinity  of  modifications.  How 
wonderful  their  garb  is,  with  colors  so  varied,  so  intense,  yet  so  seemingly 
evanescent! — the  glittering  mantle  of.  powdered  gold;  the  emerald  green 
that  changes  to  velvet  black  ;  ruby  reds  and  luminous  scarlets  ;  dull  bronze 
that  brightens  and  burns  like  polished  brass  ;  and  pale  neutral  tints  that 
kindle  to  rose  and  lilac-colored  flame.  And  to  the  glory  of  prismatic  color- 
ing are  added  feather  decorations,  such  as  the  racket-plumes  and  downy 
ruffs  of  Spathura,  the  crest  and  frills  of  Lophornis,  the  sapphire  gorget 
burning  on  the  snow-white  breast  of  Oreotrochilus,  the  fiery  tail  of  Cometes, 
and,  amongst  grotesque  forms,  the  long-pointed  crest  feathers,  representing 
horns,  and  flowing  white  beard  adorning  the  piebald  goat-like  face  of  Oxy- 
pogon.  Excessive  variation  in  this  direction  is  checked  in  nearly  all  other 
birds  by  the  need  of  a  protective  coloring,  few  kinds  so  greatly  excelling  in 
strength  and  activity  as  to  be  able  to  maintain  their  existence  without  it,  etc." 

HUDSON,   Of  Humming  Birds. 


282       THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

examples  rush  to  the  mind.  Moreover,  and  this  note  well, 
why  the  sensibility  to  beauty  ?  Why  does  it  delight  and 
thrill  us?  No  utility  is  served  by  it,  and,  if  in  scientific 
jargon,  it  is  "  the  reaction  of  the  organism  to  the  environ- 
ment," whence  did  it  get  into  "the  environment,"  and 
whence  the  percipient's  pleasure?  Only  this  alone  can 
explain  the  outer  or  the  inner  fact,  this,  that  as  we  are  of 
God's  own  nature,  and  as  He  loves  beauty,  so  there  is  the 
necessary  charm  out  there  thrilling  us  in  here.  He  can- 
not hide  Himself  if  He  would,  and  even  in  the  midst  of 
the  greatest  of  His  biological  difficulties  and  dangers,  no 
leaf  or  hair  or  organism  but  is  tell-tale  of  the  artistic  di- 
vinity. I  have  never  seen  a  living  thing  that  was  simply 
and  only  useful.  Like  a  lover's  touch  the  esthetic  caress 
lingers  warmly  and  clingingly  to  the  last,  and  is  the  one 
memory  that  does  not  fade. 

And  it  is  He  that  has  given  us  those  wondrous  sense- 
organs  which  make  beauty  for  us  even  out  of  the  un- 
living world, — like  unto  the  fairy  anointing  of  human 
eyes  that  ever  thereafter  saw  fairy-land  in  the  most 
vulgar  of  prosaic  things.  It  is  the  eye  that  creates  color 
and  light,  the  ear  that  makes  sound  and  music.  The 
rainbow  and  sunset  are  not  out  there,  as  we  well  know, 
but  as  we  are  always  forgetting.  Ethereal  and  aerial 
waves  are  per  se  most  uninteresting,  mechanical,  and 
meaningless  things.  But  these  transforming  and  trans- 
mitting living  mechanisms  deliver  to  the  mind  products  of 
unearthly  beauty  and  supersensual  significance.  The 
ingenuity  and  love  of  the  glad  divine  Artist  in  thus 
outfitting  us  with  a  responsiveness  infinitely  precious, 
various,  and  charming,  to  such  insignificant,  infinitesimal 
dead  things  as  these  oscillations  of  dead  matter,  call 
forth  from  our  hearts  a  limitless  gratitude  and  love. 


BEA  UTY.  283 

What  is  the  true  and  fundamental  reason  for  the  power 
and  charm  of  beauty,  for  the  slavery  we  all  give  to  the 
beautiful  woman,  and  for  the  pride  she  has  in  herself? 
Why  is  there  an  inexplainable  glory  in  the  brilliant  and 
flashing  eye,  why  a  quivering  sense  of  divinity  in  every 
inch  of  the  Apollo  Belvedere,  or  in  living  human  flesh  ? 
Is  it  not  simply  the  satisfaction  of  God  Himself  in  His 
successful  work?  A  million  difficulties,  fatalities,  and 
unavoidable  accidents  have  prevented  success  in  other 
specimens,  but,  Here,  says  the  divine  Mechanic,  Here, 
behold  success  !  The  successful  ending  of  long  human 
endeavor  always  provokes  joy,  elation,  and  satisfaction. 
God  is  just  as  glad  to  succeed  as  we  are  glad  to  succeed, 
and  our  delight  in  the  charm  of  beauty  is  simply  His  de- 
light— because  we  are  He.  Our  ecstatic  pleasure  in  beauty 
is  the  flush  of  the  divine  satisfaction  at  divine  success. 
"  And  behold,  it  was  very  good  !  "  Beauty,  it  must  be 
remembered,  is  more  than  perfection  :  it  is  the  smile  of 
God  overflooding  perfection,  as  sunshine  and  swaying 
zephyr  over  hilltop  or  cornfield. 

But  after  all,  its  greatest  significance  is  that  it  is  a 
promise  and  hint  of  what  is  to  be.  All  young  things,  and 
especially  children,  are  beautiful,  because  they  are  plastic 
and  fresh  from  God's  hand.  It  is  apparent  that  God  is 
trying  to  preserve  this  beauty  into  and  through  adult  age, 
and  who  can  doubt  that  He  will  by  and  by  succeed.  Then 
every  woman  will  be  a  virtuous  Helen,  and  every  man  a 
moral  Goethe  ;  perfect  trees  will  laugh  with  the  laugh- 
ter of  the  skies,  and  all  animal  life  will  take  up  its  line 
of  march  toward  humanization,  whilst  we — "  the  eternal- 
womanly  will  ever  lure  us  on." 


CHAPTER  XV. 
SLEEP,  DREAMING,  AND   AWAKENING. 

SOME  ancient  philosopher,  I  think  it  was  Plotinus,  with 
deep  feeling  of  the  truth,  said  that  "  matter  is  the 
true  river  of  Lethe  ;  immersed  in  it  the  Soul  forgets 
everything."  Now  although  this  expresses  a  certain  fore- 
feeling  or  partial  aspect  of  the  truth,  it  by  no  means  gives 
any  hint  of  the  reason  of  the  fact.  The  most  obvious 
thought  at  once  arising  in  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  reader, 
the  simplest  objection  to  an  acceptance  of  the  incarnation- 
theory,  is  this  of  the  loss  of  the  divine  self-consciousness 
upon  entering  matter  in  the  incarnation-process,  and  also 
the  non-recognition  of  the  divine  character  and  self  as  the 
essential  basis  of  our  own  self-consciousness.  This  will 
prove  no  difficulty  to  those  who  will  sympathetically 
ponder  it,  and  with  careful  imagination  conceive  what 
must  necessarily  follow  from  the  conditions  antedating  and 
synchronous  with  the  incarnation-fact.  It  all  becomes 
clearer  if  we  resolutely  hold  fast  the  knowledge  of  these 
most  obvious  facts  :  that  only  by  and  through  the  cell- 
mechanism  can  God  gain  control  of  matter  and  mechanics; 
that  individualization  is  the  combination  of  cell-mechan- 
isms for  a  specific  purpose  and  function  ;  that  the  higher 
or  more  complex  cell-mechanism  is  dependent  upon  the 
ingestion  of  simpler  ones — orhigher  forms  of  individuali- 
zation depend  upon  the  lower  ;  that  the  control  and  func- 
tion of  cell-mechanism  has  never  been  given  over  to  the 

284 


SLEEP,   DREAMING,   AND  AWAKENING.  28$ 

individual,  but  has  been  retained  entirely  in  the  divine 
hands.  In  other  words,  the  control  of  the  essential 
mechanism  of  incarnation  is  by  direct  divine  power,  and 
the  cell  and  all  that  pertains  to  cell-nutrition  and  function 
are  mere  dumb  agencies  of  His  clear  grasp  and  intellectual 
use  as  instruments,  subject  to  the  help  of  an  automatoni- 
zation  or  regularity  of  action  that  insures  a  desirable 
relative  uniformity  of  morphology,  whilst  it  also  aids  in 
the  systematization  or  outworking  of  the  process. 

So  long,  therefore,  as  to  us  is  not  given  the  control  of 
cellular  organo-genetic  and  nutritive  processes,  so  long 
necessarily  must  the  purely  intellectual  perception  of  God 
and  of  our  divine  nature  be  more  or  less  defective.  When 
physiology  and  therm o-chemistry  have  solved  the  mystery 
of  cytology,  the  mind  will  begin  to  perceive  God  intellec- 
tually, because  by  that  solved  mystery  will  come  the 
mathematical  and  mechanical  demonstration  of  a  super- 
natural and  metaphysical  agency.  There  is  in  the  cell  an 
as  yet  unestimated  but  certainly  active  foreign  and  non- 
mechanical  force.  The  distance  apart,  and  the  difference 
of  function,  of  the  human  and  the  divine  mind  are  ap- 
proximately estimated  by  this  our  ignorance  of  cell-life, 
but  is  more  strikingly  shown  by  the  fact  of  our  present 
inability  to  direct  cytogenesis  and  cytotrophy — i.  e.,  cell- 
production  and  cell-nutrition.  The  individual  conscious- 
ness is  God's  partial  incarnation  of  Self,  and  must 
necessarily  be  nearly  conterminous  with  the  needs  and 
functions  of  the  organism  as  a  whole.  On  the  physical 
side  cell-function  has  not  been  given  to  the  individual 
control  or  consciousness,  but  only  the  direction  of  the 
combined  results  of  cell-activities,  such  as  molar  motion, 
is  thrown  under  human  volition.  On  the  divine  side  the 
human  consciousness  has  been  limited  simply  by  the  status 


2 86     THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

of  the  organism  as  regards  comprehension  of  and  loyalty 
to  the  divine  purpose.  So  fast  as  the  individual  has  been 
able  to  make  right  use  of  deputed  responsibility,  so  fast  is 
it  given  him,  and  just  so  fast  does  the  human  conscious- 
ness enlarge  into  and  become  one  with  the  divine.  A  far 
greater  bestowal  of  the  divine  attributes  upon  the  individual 
than  is  proportional  to  his  educational  and  intellectual 
condition,  or  to  the  grade  of  perfection  attained,  would 
result  in  two  obvious  misfortunes :  first,  misuse  of  the 
deputed  power,  from  ignorance  or  disloyalty  ;  and  second, 
unhappiness  of  the  individual  chained  to  a  seemingly 
ignoble  task  with  a  divine  consciousness  of  greater  capaci- 
ties. I  said  "  a  far  greater  bestowal,"  because  it  is  an 
evident  fact  that  in  man  knowledge,  conscience,  and 
consciousness  have  outrun  volition,  possibility,  and  reali- 
zation, and  this  has  acted  as  a  divine  incentive  to  draw  us 
upward  faster,  to  inspire  us  with  a  heavenly  hunger  and 
with  a  heavenly  hope.  There  would  evidently  be  no 
advantage  to  the  incarnation-process,  or  to  any  individual 
to  outfit  him  with  a  divine  consciousness  immensely  out- 
running power  and  the  duties  of  function.  A  grass  blade 
would  have  no  more  happiness  or  usefulness  if  given  the 
grade  and  degree  of  soul-life  of  a  noble  tree,  nor  would  a 
moth  be  the  better  off  for  having  a  lion's  soul.  If  a 
human  mind  were  transferred  to  a  horse's  organization, 
retaining  the  human  self-consciousness,  sensitiveness,  and 
knowledge,  it  would  result  both  in  wretchedness,  and  in 
a  very  poor  quality  of  equine  function,  at  least  until  the 
higher  and  useless  attributes  had  atrophied.  When  the 
parasitical  sacculina  fastens  itself  to  the  crab's  tail,  its  eyes 
and  other  sensory  and  motile  organs  become  useless  and 
are  soon  lost.  When  the  human  being  becomes  a  hermit, 
or,  in  habits,  an  animal,  the  human  soul  also  atrophies. 


SLEEP,   DREAMING,   AND  AWAKENING.  287 

The  progress  of  consciousness  and  the  grade  of  soul-life 
are  thus  primarily  conditioned  upon  (not  caused  by  /)  the 
grade  of  individuation,  the  degree  of  perfection  of  organi- 
zation, and  the  necessary  function.  In  the  educated 
human  being  this  individuation,  or  this  subjection  of  the 
world  by  knowledge,  science,  and  mechanical  ingenuity,  is 
fast  reaching  a  comparative  perfection  that  is  denied  to 
the  individual  as  such.  Civilization  is  merely  a  great  tool 
or  instrument,  a  new  mental  sense,  and  an  indirect  exten- 
sion of  body.  Further  progress  of  sense-making  or  of 
bodily  mechanization  becomes  therefore  unnecessary.  The 
physiological  (and  with  it  the  nutritional)  problem  is  solved, 
and  organofaction  is  at  an  end.  No  new  physiological 
instruments  will  be  developed,  because  none  will  be 
needed.  All  that  is  needed  is  the  perfected  use  of  those 
that  have  already  been  evolved,  and  the  utilization  of  the 
indirect  extension  of  the  neurological  and  psychological 
instruments  that  we  call  science  and  civilization. 

With  a  careful  recognition  of  the  singleness  of  aspect  and 
limits  of  the  metaphor,  the  three  stages  of  the  incarnation- 
process  may  be  analogized  by  the  facts  of  going  to  sleep, 
of  dreaming,  and  of  awakening,  and  epitomized  by  Froebel 
in  the  words,  From  Life,  Through  Life,  To  Life.  In  enter- 
ing matter,  God,  in  a  sense,  does  enter  a  "river  of  Lethe," 
in  so  far  as  there  is  evidently  that  degree  of  task-setting,  or 
allotment  of  the  divine  attributes  required  to  carry  on  the 
necessary  work  of  the  process.  When  we  drive  the  cows 
home  we  do  not  need  or  utilize  our  higher  knowledge  of 
trigonometry  or  of  astronomy ;  and  when  we  plant  or  train 
a  grape-vine  we  do  not  use  the  higher  knowledge  of  ad- 
vanced pedagogics,  or  the  conclusions  and  powers  we  have 
gained  in  sociological  study  and  governmental  adminis- 
tration. There  is,  indeed,  a  plenitude  of  the  divine  attri- 


2S8      THE   MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

butes,  obvious  or  inferable,  in  the  lower  or  lowest  types 
of  individuation.  But  it  is  most  plain  in  cytology,  or 
what  is  crudely  called  "  the  vegetative  functions  "  of  the 
organism,  which,  according  to  the  metaphor,  go  on  in 
sleep,  and,  as  we  should  expect,  go  on  even  better  in  sleep 
than  with  the  somewhat  disturbing  action  of  the  waking 
personality.  In  the  lower  grades  of  the  incarnation-pro- 
cess, God,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  direct  implication  of  the 
highest  attributes  of  divinity,  "goes  to  sleep,"  gives  over 
to  the  cytologic  mechanism  (never,  however,  or  chiefly  an 
automatic  or  non-divine  mechanism)  the  effectualization 
of  His  purpose,  and  reserves  the  higher  consciousness  to 
Himself. 

A  different  sort  and  degree  of  the  divine  self-subdi- 
vision, or  deputization  of  Himself,  is  that  sharing  of 
Himself  that  constitutes  the  mental  or  soul-life  of  the 
individual.  The  extent  of  this  Self-giving,  or  the  degree 
to  which  the  higher  attributes  of  God  are  grafted  into  the 
individual  (plant,  animal,  or  man),  depends,  as  has  been 
said,  upon  the  perfection  of  organization,  or  upon  the 
power  to  certainly  control,  the  intellect  to  infallibly  di- 
rect, and  the  loyalty  to  rightly  use, — qualities  that  rela- 
tively develop  pari  passu. 

The  likeness  to  a  dream  of  one's  own  life,  the  lives  of 
all  men,  and  of  the  course  of  cosmic  life,  has  been  recog- 
nized by  the  poets  and  philosophers  of  all  ages.  How- 
ever like  reality  they  were  at  the  time,  the  objects  we 
so  earnestly  and  passionately  struggled  for  in  the  past,  as 
we  now  calmly  smile  at  our  old  diaries,  seem  to  be  like 
the  soft  delusions  of  our  dreams.  All  history  seems  like 
the  phantom  and  aimless  fancies  of  a  slumbering  dreamer. 
There  is  much  nightmare  in  the  historical  dream,  but 
there  are  also  in  it  sweet  figures,  tender  and  sad,  or  light- 


SLEEP,    DREAMING,   AND  AWAKENING.  289 

some  and  beautiful :  St.  Francis,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Buddha, 
Beethoven,  Heine,  Goethe,  one's  mother,  wife,  or  friend. 
And  then  there  are  the  dreams  of  dreams  :  Helen  of 
Troy,  the  Apollo  Belvedere ;  Arthur,  Elaine,  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Table  Round  ;  Dante's  Beatrice,  Siegfried, 
incorporeal  and  unrealized  desire,  and  unseen  yearned- 
for  love,  a  hidden  tragedy,  a  hunger  for  God.  All  we 
have -done,  and  all  that  all  men  have  done,  seems  like  an 
aimless  search  for  an  unknown  good,  with  the  Maia-veil 
of  illusion  always  withdrawing  though  never  wholly  with- 
drawn. Humanity  is  busied  with  its  own  brain-phantoms, 
delighted  or  frightened  at  the  real-unreal  visions  sponta- 
neously springing  into  the  uneasy  sleeper's  imagination. 
There  is  a  sense  of  unreality  over  and  in  all  life,  a  subtle 
disturbing  Ahnung  that  we  are  asleep,  and  that  awaken- 
ing is  coming. 

This  sense  of  the  dream-quality  of  life  corresponds  too 
truly  to  a  philosophical  knowledge  of  life  to  be  passed  in- 
differently by.  All  process,  especially  the  incarnation- 
process,  leads  somewhither,  is  itself  a  means  to  an  end, 
and  to  an  earnest  travelling  soul  the  destination  must  be 
always  more  than  the  road  of  life  or  than  the  vehicle  of 
the  body.  The  dream-illusion  of  all  living  is  the  illusion 
of  attaching  interest  only  to  the  route,  forgetting  that  we 
are  definitely  travelling  somewhither  and  for  an  object. 
The  roadway  of  life  is  rough  or  excellent ;  the  physiologi- 
cal carriage  may  be  good  or  bad  ;  one's  fellow-passengers 
may  be  pleasant  or  not ;  the  scenery  glorious  or  sadden- 
ing; the  journey  long  or  short,  comfortable  or  full  of 
pain.  Dreams  are  all  these,  however,  and  a  distant 
church-spire  or  a  chance  philosophical  pamphlet  suggests 
to  the  dreamer  that  there  is  an  approaching  journey 
ending. 


THE  MEANING  AND    THE  METHOD   OF  LIFE. 

If  the  poor  dreamer  love  the  journey  more  than  the 
home-coming,  the  dream  better  than  the  awakening,  he 
will  turn  to  thoughtlessness,  to  selfish  plans  and  amuse- 
ments, to  the  thousand  distractions  of  life — war,  money, 
or  ambition — with  which  we  poor  travellers  beguile  the 
way  and  with  which  the  way  beguiles  us.  The  traveller 
that  finally  turns  with  insatisfaction  from  all  wayward  dis- 
tractions or  amusements,  reflects  upon  the  outsetting  of 
self  and  of  all  living  things,  of  the  meaning  and  object  of 
the  great  journey  of  life,  and  of  the  coming  return  to  the 
home; — such  is  the  philosopher;  and  if  in  the  little  philo- 
sophic dream  of  this  book  we  have  dreamed  duteously 
and  wisely,  the  journey's  end  in  death  will  not  be  a  ruth- 
less and  sudden  awakening  among  strangers,  or  to  what 
we  know  not,  but  it  will  be  the  eager  and  delighted  re- 
ception at  home  by  our  Father  and  our  Friend.  We 
have  already,  indeed,  had  the  truer  and  better  awakening, 
and  death  has  nothing  which  we  either  fear  or  for  which  we 
hope. 

The  best  that  may  be  said  of  "  the  world  "  is  that  it 
is  a  letter  direct  from  the  Father's  own  hand,  advising 
us,  telling  us  of  Himself,  and  urging  us  to  hasten  our 
return  to  Him.  During  the  long  journey  we  read  it  over 
and  over  again,  delighted  at  the  kindness  it  witnesses, 
and  the  beautiful  suggestions  it  gives  of  His  thoughtful- 
ness  and  wisdom  and  lovableness.  But,  after  all,  the 
letter  is  only  to  recall  to  mind  the  living  Being  who  wrote 
it,  and  it  closes  with  the  admonition  to  love  Him  and  to 
come  to  Him.  Blessed  are  we  if  the  dear  letter  reach  us 
long  before  our  long  journey's  end,  and  thrice  blessed 
we  that  receive  such  a  letter  from  a  Father  that  by  the 
false  message  of  a  mistaken  friend  we  had  mourned  as 
dead! 


SLEEP,    DREAMING,   AND  AWAKENING.  2C)l 

Out  of  the  unreality  and  illusion  of  our  dream-life  there 
are  two  methods  of  awakening :  the  doubtful,  mysterious, 
and  unknown  one  that  lies  in  and  beyond  death  ;  the 
other,  by  the  emotional,  scientific,  and  philosophic  per- 
ception of  the  significance  of  life,  and  our  duty  to  the 
Father  of  Life.  I  urge,  I  fervently  urge,  that  we  need 
not  wait  for  death  to  awaken  us,  but  that  here  and  now  we 
may  come  to  vivid  self-consciousness.  All  these  materi- 
ality-engendered dreams  may  be  flashed  out  of  the 
aroused  mind  by  the  divine  call  that  we  awaken,  by  the 
instant  recognition  of  the  meaning  and  the  use  of  the 
whole  biological  process  which  scientific  thought  gives  us, 
and  that  all  religion  has  happily  kept  the  mind  open  and 
waiting  to  receive.  With  the  banishment  of  dream,  we 
awaken — face  to  face  with  the  smiling  God. 


INDEX. 


Absorption   of    God  in   His  work, 

224,  225 

Achromatism,  198 
Adversity,  uses  of,  184,  185 
Agriculture,  260 
Altruism  and  egoism,  266 
Anabolism  and  evolution,  148 
Animals,  anecdotes  of,  172  ;  care  of, 

264  ;  intelligence  of,  264 
Animal-world,  261 
Appropriation  of  God's  mechanisms, 

193 
Architect,  likeness  of  work  of  Biolo- 

gos  to,  20 1 
Asceticism,  24,  164 
Assassins,  anecdote  of,  230 
Atoms,  14,  26,  151,  192,  216 
Atrophic  organs,  96,  168 
Attention,  213,  215,  224 
Automatonization   of    cell-function, 

94,  95,  97 
Avatars,  22 

Awakening  from  dream  of  life,  291 
Awe,  211 


B 


Badness  of  men,  182 

Bats,  blinding  of,  etc.,  107 

Beauty,  223,  279.  280,  283;  and  nutri- 
tion, 280  ;  of  woman,  163,  164, 
170 

Beethoven,  quotation  from,  112 

Being  and  doing,  240 

Biologos,  attributes  of,  1 6,  34,  213, 
214  ;  definition  of,  16  ;  purpose  of, 
248 

Bird  and  feather  ornaments,  263 


Birds,  songs  of,  114 
Blindness,  107,  109 
Blood  covenant  and  bloodshed,  124, 

128 

Blue  color,  125 
Booby's  proof,  162 
Books  for  the  young,  276 
Brahminism,  33,  35 
Bridgman,  Laura,  109 
Brown-Sequard,  reference  to,  162 
Buddhism,  32,  34,  35,  164 


Calvinism,  199 

Carlyle,  quotation  from,  276 

Causes,  ultimate,  4,  22,  23,  190 

Cell-doctrine,  5,  61,  78,  99,  153 

Cell,  God's  control  of,  6,  67,  80,  84; 
nature  of,  etc.,  5,  61,  67,68,  78, 
81,  99,  142,  158 

Chakar,  flight  of,  10 

Childlessness,  171,  172 

Childraising,  234 

Children,  163,  171 

Christ,  and  Christianity,  38,  39  ;  and 
his  followers,  38,  51 

Christian  feeling,  50 

Christianity,  36,  174  ;  and  civiliza- 
tion, 174,175 

Christ's  message,  39,  43,  44 

Chronicity  of  evolution  process,  150, 

153 

Chronophotograph,  108 
Civilization,  287 
Cleanliness,  180 
Clinging  to  life,  152 
Clock,  comparison  of  cell  to,  160 
Cold  and  heat,  106 
Color-sense,  130 


293 


294 


INDEX. 


Colors,  origin  of,  etc.,  121,  124,  126, 

127,  130 

Color,  symbolism,  131 
Commercialism,  197 
Conscience,  significance  of,  266,  267 
Consciousness,  individual,  285,  286 
Contradictions  of  law  of  life,  248 
Corbett  and  Sullivan,   reference  to, 

197 

Cosmic  horror,  7,  189 
Crowd-diseases,  179 
Cruelty,  to  animals,  242;  to  trees,  243 
Cytology,   77,   155  ;  is  medicine,  86, 

179;  is  theology,  77 
Cytolysis,  88 

D 

Darwinism,  15,  240 

Darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis,  99 

Deaf-mutes,  107,   108 

Death,  168,  178,  182  ;  fear  of,  235 

Dedication,  171 

Deductive  truths,  23,  176 

Defective  classes,  163 

Deforestation,  257 

Delegation  of  freedom,  207 

Density,  value  according  to,  217 

Design  in  inorganic  world,  3 

Determinism,    199;    and   evolution, 

148  ;  and  materialism,  239 
De  Vries'  theory,  98 
Diseases,    of    civilization,    181  ;    of 

plants,  258 

Divinization  of  human,  253 
Dog,  anecdote  of,  172 
Dore's  neophyte,  189 
Dream,  likeness  of  life  to,  288 
Drurnmond,  quotation  from,  281 
Dualism  of  life  and  matter,  29,  30 
Duties  to  world,  groups  of,  253 
Duty  and  joy,  277 


E 


Eleventh  commandment,  242 

Endogamy,  158 

Environment  and  biological  process, 

201 

Ether,  26,  27,  216 
Ether- waves,  116,  126 
Ethical  systems,  faults  of,  241 


Ethics,   239,   243;  systems  of,   241, 

251 

Evil,  176,  185 
Evolution,  145 

Existence  of  God,  proofs  of,  51,  54 
Exogamy,  158 
Eye,  functions  of,  135,  136  ;  history 

and  development  of,  138;  influence 

of  disease  of,  138  ;  reflexes  of,  137  ; 

and  sexual  beauty,  137 


Faith,  the  logic  of,  151 
Famines,  181 
Farmer,  the,  260 
Fate,  3,  30 
Fire,  122 
Flowers,  281 
Forestry,  74,  260 

Freedom,  199,  227,  252  ;  in  animals, 
203-205 


G 


Game  of  life,  268 

Gamete,  158 

Gilbert  a  Becket,  anecdote  of,  10 

Gladstone,  reference  to,  127 

God,  character  of,  177,  178;  finite- 
ness  of,  5,  19,  20,  29,  31,  60,  177  ; 
in  biology,  9,  59,  81,  84,  162  ;  in- 
genuity of,  222;  justice  of,  177; 
kindness  of,  162,  163,  177,  178, 
189,  221  ;  as  substance,  216 

Goethe,  36 

Golden  light,  123,  128 

Goodness  of  God,  18 

Gravity,  law  of,  4 


II 


Healing  of  wounds,  91,  93 
Hearing,  112 

Heat  and  cold,  106  ;  of  body,  88 
Heroism,  272 
Homesickness,  8 
Homing  instinct,  134 
Hook-and-bait  theory,  164,  169 
Hudson,    quotation  from,     10,    114, 

115,  261 
Humanity,  rights  of,  255 


INDEX. 


295 


Humming-birds,  281 
Hunger,  role  of,  157 


Idealism,  24,  140 

Imitation  of  God,  24,  250 

Immortality,  229  ;  lack  of  evidence 
of,  235 

Impiety,  19,  30 

Incarnation,  58-65,  191,  219 ;  pro- 
cess, justification  of,  188,  196 

Indirect  agencies  of  God's  control, 
246 

Individuality,  preservation  of,  237 

Individuation,  202 

Inhnitesimally  small,  God  and  the, 
216 

Infinity  of  God,  16,  20,  21 

Ingenuity  of  God,  222 

Inorganic  world,  duty  to,  254 

Intellectual  perception  of  God,  285 

Intelligence  behind  living  things,  3 

Inventions  and  imitations,  193 

J 

Joy  and  duty,  277 

K 

Keller,  Helen,  109 

Key  of  mysteries,  93 

Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth,  246 

Kitten,  anecdote  of,  172 


Laughter  and  humor,  279 

Law,  nature  of,  34 

Lethe,  river  of,  284,  287 

Life,  aim  of,  5,  190,  192  ;  nature  of, 

14,  15,  19,  60  ;  origin  of,  4,  21,  22  ; 

work  of,  23,  34,  69,  191 
Light,  121,  123 
Light-year,  13 
Limitations  and  supplementations  of 

eleventh  commandment,  46 
Living  and  lifeless  things,  distinction 

between,  3 

Love,  157,  163,  164;  anecdote  of,  222 
Loyalty,  need  of,  278 
Luxury,  40,  206,  273 


M 


Magnus,  reference  to,  127 
Marsh's  The  Earth,  allusion  to,  74 
Material  and  worker,  12 
Materialism,  24,  26,  28,  154 
Matter  and  life,  12,  22,   28,  29,  47, 

67,  78,  81,  1 86,  191 
Matter,  origin  of,  4,  23,  31 
Mechanicalization  of  cell-function, 94 
Mechanics   of    incarnation,   65,   67, 

104,  155,  159,  219 
Medicine,  86,  92 
Metaphysical,  14,  155 
Mind,  attitude  of,  as  to  mystery,  2 
Molecule,  66,  67 

Money,  271,  273  ;  love  of,  209,  *io 
Monism,  28 

Morality  and  theism.  35 
Moral  law,  7,  8 
Moses,  order  of,  259 
Mother-love  and  motherhood,    171, 

172 

Music,  112,  113,  139,  197 
Mystery,  incuriosity  concerning,  I,  23 


N 


Nature  and  man,  74,  75 

Nightmare  of  the  dream  of  history, 

288 

Nutrition,  85,  103 
Nutritional  difficulty,  150,  157,  158, 

160,161,  169,  179,   181,   195,  202, 

214,215 


Omne  vivum  ex  vivo,  153 
Omnipotence  of  God,  16,  29,  47,  48 
Omnis  cellula  e  cellula,  155 
Omniscience  of  God,  17 
Organic  crystallization,  156 
Organic  life,  unity  of,  69,  73 
Organof action,  94,  202 
Origin  of  inorganic  universe,  3 


Paderewsky,  197 
Pangenesis  theory,  09 
Pantheism,  26,  28,  61 


296 


INDEX. 


Parker,  quotation  from,  276 

Park,  Professor,  anecdote  of,  115 

Patents,  255 

Pathogeny,  179 

Personality,  211,  221,  224  ;  origin  of, 

223  ;  true,  236 
Pessimism,   35 ,    164,    182  ;  truth  of, 

267,  268 

Philosophic  dream,  290 
Philosophy  and  religion,  10 
Physical  and,  metaphysical,  12,  154, 

196 

Physical  world,  13,  25,  1 86 
Physician,  the,  197 
Piety,  19,  212 
Pineal  eye,  134 
Plaut-life,  71,  72,  124,  129 
Plant-world,  use  of,  257 
Plotinus,  quotation  from,  284 
Politics,  197 

Poverty,  184 ;  of  wealth,  184 
Power,  use  of,  over  others,  265 
Pressure-sense,  105 
Prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals,  242 
Progress,  223 

Proofs  of  existence  of  God,  51 
Prosperity,  184 
Purpose  of  God,  190,  191 
Pyrolatry,  122 

R 

Red  color,  124,  127,  128 
Rejuvenescence,  150,  157 
Religion,  9,  40,  42,  44,  45;  of  science, 

49  ;  of  the  future,  174,  175 
Renunciation,  philosophy  of,  268  ;  of 

divine  attributes,  253 
Reproduction,  85,  157,  165,  173  ;  of 

lost  parts,  100 

Responsibility,  delegation  of,  207 
Retina,  sensibility  of,  120,  127 
Riches,  limitation  of,  273 
Riddle  of  life,  3,  93 
Rights  of  humanity,  255 
Rule  of  ethics,  243,  245,  250 


Sagacity  and  morality  of  plants,  256 
Scaffold  and  steeple  of  life,  237 
Schopenhauer,  36,  164,  188,  199 


Science,  9,  82  ;  a  failure  of,  151 

Self,  duty  to,  275 

Selfishness  and  unselfishness,  270 

Self-love,  mechanisms  of,  266 

Senescence,  150,  158,  161 

Sensation,  101,  no,  140,  142 

Sense-making,  287 

Sense-organs,  282 

Sex  and  sexualism,  157,  164,  165 

Sin,  essence  of,  269 

Sleep,  dreaming,  and  awakening,  284 

Smell,  sense  of,  in 

Solar  system,  66,  67 

Somacule,  67,  218 

Sons  of  God,  226 

Space,  comprehension  of,  211,212 

Spectrum,  divisions  or  rays  of,  118, 

121 

Spencer,  theory  of,  154 
Spiritists,  evidence  of,  236 
Sport,  261 

Standard  of  conduct,  250 
Star-lit  heaven,  7-8 
Stars,  motion  of,  4 
Success,  206 

Suffering,  exaggeration  of,  183 
Suicide,  188 
Sunlight,  composition  of,  12 1 


Temperature,  and  its  significance,  87, 

89,  90  ;  of  plants,  259 
Theism  and  morality,  35 
Theology,  77 

Time,  comprehension  of,  213 
Touch,  105 
Tragedy,  of  the  spirit,  9  ;  the  divine, 

224 

Transmigration,  33 
Trees,  256,  259,  260 
Trumbull,  reference  to,  124 
Truth,  best  method  of  reaching,  2 
Tuberculosis,  180 


Vegetarianism,  261 

Vegetation,    world   of,    71,  72,   124, 

129,  204  ;  duty  to,  256,  257 
Vegetative  functions,  288 
Venereal  disease,  180 


INDEX. 


297 


Vibrations,  the  stimuli  of  sensation, 

105 

Vicariousness  of  lives,  271,   272 
Victory  over  death,  235 
Vision,  117 
Visual  opera,  139 
Vivisection,  264 
Voice,  human,  115 


Wagner,  influence  of,  139 
Wallace,  quotation  from,  240 
War,  125 

Wastefulness  of  man,  275 
Wave-length,  126 

Waves,    ether,    116,    126,  216,   217, 
219 


Wealth,  184  ;   use  of,  274 
Weissmann's  theory,  99,   158 
Wilson,  Dr.,  observations  of,  259 
Woman,  beauty  of,  281 
Wood,  use  of,  258 
World,  likened  to  a  letter  from  God, 
290 


Yeast  and  muscle,  256 
Young,  books  for  the,  276 


Zeno's  paradox,  154 
Zero,  absolute,  27 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
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MAR    2F»  1935 

i 

JIN    9     ^4G 

. 

9tta^aOJ8 

^Ucr  rtwg 

*       WJfcf'fr-'5 

RpC'D  UD 

aian   O  f\  ^CL^     1f\   A 

i 

MAR  20^b*Wft 

I! 

LD  21-100m-8,'34 

YC  30730 


249043 


